


tangled ribbons

by CareyElizabeth



Series: two's company [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Ballet, F/F, Happy Ending, Modern AU, Nobody Dies, everyone who's in love stays in love, five years after black ribbons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:00:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CareyElizabeth/pseuds/CareyElizabeth
Summary: ‘I think you’re remembering what it’s like to grieve, and that’s hard. But you’re also whole, and healthy, which is something, and you’ve got a couple of days off, which is something else. And you’re not losing anyone this time.’(another year, another ballet. but there’s a problem.)





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously I'm going to recommend that you read black ribbons first, but if you're just dying to get started let me catch you up:
> 
> Lexa is a world-class ballerina at a major company, having been more or less brought up at the company ballet school after her dad died. Clarke is a major fashion designer. They're in love. 
> 
> Lincoln is a principal dancer and Lexa's lifelong dance partner. Octavia is a rising star in the corps de ballet of the same company. They're in love. 
> 
> Anya danced with the company for a couple of years before breaking her leg and becoming a choreographer. Raven is a renowned physiotherapist. They're in love. 
> 
> Yeah that's pretty much it. If there's anything that's not clear, or anything you want explained about the ballet stuff, don't be shy! My tumblr is @southsouthwest and I'm friendly.

Contrary to popular belief, Clarke Griffin was not a workaholic.

It was technically true that she had to set alarms on her phone to remind her to leave the studio on time, but only because she got so absorbed in what she was doing that she forgot to look at her watch, or eat lunch, or notice minor details like the fact that it was getting dark outside. Once the alarms went off, though, she was off with only the bare minimum of backward glances. Five years with Lexa had chipped away at her ingrained horror of leaving anything half-done, and going home to fresh food in her fridge and a ballerina in her bed was certainly much more appealing than an empty apartment had been in the old days. They’d fallen into a system of committing to the evenings they both had free, and it worked.

In fairness, the ballerina was more likely to be lying on the floor with her legs on the couch and ice packs on both feet, but it was the thought that counted.

‘Sorry, sorry, I knew I said I’d be back by seven but there was a draping crisis and - oh.’

She always knew whether Lexa was home from the moment she opened the door. It wasn’t that the apartment was silent - the dancer hardly ever put music on after work - but there would be lights on, keys in the bowl, and usually a breadcrumb-trail of stray hairpins leading to wherever her girlfriend had seen fit to collapse.  _ You’re back late tonight. I started dinner. The subway was a mess. I missed you today.  _ It wasn’t exactly a surprise to find the place still dark, but it was unusual for the time of year, and five years’ experience had also made Clarke pragmatic about it. Season was barely a week old, and she’d just gotten used to having Lexa to herself, but at least when she got back first she could get in the shower before Lexa settled in for one of her marathon muscle-relaxing, inflammation-soothing, head-clearing baths. 

She left the door open so she’d hear when Lexa got in and took her time, going through her entire shelf of products, exfoliating and facemasking and remembering to use conditioner. But it was eight thirty when she finished, and still nothing. Clarke frowned and checked their shared calendar. Lexa was meticulous about filling it in, every physical therapy appointment and every media commitment carefully documented, and religious about texting when plans changed. Blank.

Clarke put the leftover chicken in the oven to heat through and realized she was worried. Eight thirty would have been an early night during show season, but it was rare for Lexa to have to stay so late during rehearsal period. No, not rare, unheard of. Indra and Kane kept a close eye on how long their dancers spent in the studio, too careful to risk stress fractures from overuse before they’d even set foot on stage. 

Why was there nothing good on Netflix any more? 

_ Octavia, _  she thought suddenly. If something weird was going on at the company, the younger dancer would know. Or she could ask Lincoln. Either way, Clarke would learn something.

**Clarke Griffin (21:02):** Did Lexa leave normal time today? I haven’t heard from her

There was a pause, during which Clarke seriously considered getting in her car and making a tour of the local hospitals.

**Octavia Blake (21:17):** yeah I’m with her, something happened, sorry really can’t talk now but she’ll explain later

**Octavia Blake (21:20):** don’t worry

‘Well I am completely fucking reassured,’ muttered Clarke out loud. 

Ten p.m., and she had managed to make it through two episodes of  _ America’s Next Top Model, _  the only show she found frustrating enough to take her mind off the gnawing worry. She still almost fell out of her chair at the sound of keys in the door. ‘What happened? Are you okay? Where have you been?’

Lexa was upright, that was good, and on her own two feet, and there were no slings or casts or bandages to be seen. Half of Clarke’s nightmare scenarios dissolved, only to creep back in new forms at the sight of Lexa’s blank expression and the clipped, clinical way she unwound her scarf and dropped her keys on the table.

‘What’s going on?’

The ballerina looked strangely absent, and her eyes were red-rimmed, but her voice was almost aggressively calm when she spoke. ‘Is there anything to drink?’

‘Lexa, what’s -’

‘I’m serious.’

Clarke wavered on her heel, then went to the cupboard for the half-empty bottle of Macallan and a glass. Lexa poured one and drank it in the space of about ten seconds, ruthlessly practical, and looked about to do the same to the second.

‘Lex, you’re scaring me.’

Lexa didn’t move for a moment, hand curled around the bottle, head to the side as though she was trying to make up her mind to turn around. Something was wrong, terribly, catastrophically wrong, but there was no point pushing; Clarke hated doing it, and Lexa would shut down, and it would make everything worse. So Clarke waited, watched her girlfriend’s strong shoulders give way in one deep breath, then another, and hugged her sides so hard it hurt.

Eventually Lexa drained the second glass and swung round before she could change her mind, turning the glass over and over in her hands as though she’d never seen it before. ‘There was an accident,’ she said levelly. ‘On the freeway. Indra and Kane -’

Clarke hadn’t interrupted her, but the words broke off like she’d been hit. Clarke stood stock-still, mouth opening and closing three times before she found anything to say. ‘And - is it - Lex. Are they -’

‘Oh, they’re alive. They’re going to be alive. But -’ Lexa swallowed hard and dragged her eyes up to meet Clarke’s for the first time. ‘It’s bad, Clarke. It’s really bad. They’re in for surgery now, and it’s going to be a long one so they made us all go home, but -’

‘Hey. Hey, come here.’ Clarke took the glass away gently and blew on Lexa’s cold hands, standing close enough to smell the whisky on her breath and the smoke in her hair. ‘They’ll fix them. I know they will. I was going to be a doctor, remember?’

‘I’m not sure carrying a stethoscope for Halloween counts as medical training.’

‘And that’s why you’re a ballerina and not an MD.’ That coaxed out a flicker of a promise of a half-smile, and Clarke seized the opportunity to get Lexa out of her coat and into a chair. ‘Okay. First things first. Have you eaten?’

‘No. Yes. Coffee.’

‘Nice try. There’s chicken in the oven and veggies on the stove.’

‘I love you.’

‘You’re just saying that because I’m about to feed you.’

‘No, I mean it. I don’t know what I would have done if this had happened and I didn’t have you.’ Lexa scrubbed her hands over her face and through her hair, massaged her scalp, knotted her fingers in front of her. ‘I don’t - this isn’t - I didn’t think I’d be like this. I’m not supposed to be like this.’

Clarke came and sat down beside her with a full plate and cutlery, pulling the coffee table close. ‘You’re allowed to care, Lex. I’d be worried if you didn’t.’

‘It’s not that I’m not allowed to, it’s...they’re going to be fine, in time. The doctors said so. Everything is fixable. There’s no _reason_ for me to freak out, but it’s just, the first responders called me. I was the last number in Indra’s call history. She and Kane were at this pointless outreach event all day, and she phoned at lunchtime because someone had asked if I could guest at West Oak again for _Nutcracker,_  and - fuck.’ Lexa exhaled impatiently. ‘It all sounds so stupid. But I got the call and I heard them say _accident_ and _freeway_ and _crash_ and I just froze. Because I remember the day they told me my dad was dead. I came back from the studio after school, I waited and waited, and then the police came, and the county, and they took me away that night. Because I didn’t have anyone else. And if Indra and Kane hadn’t -’

‘Oh, love,’ sighed Clarke, rubbing her back in soothing circles. ‘You know that’s okay, right? Very human. Very normal.’

‘I need them,’ Lexa said simply, after a minute, voice back to that deadly calm. ‘I didn’t realize how much.’ 

Her hands were shaking, and that hurt. Clarke took them between hers and hung on for dear life as though that could fix things, trying to balance her instinct to comfort against Lexa’s need to get things straight in her own head first. She could only be desperately sorry, and desperately sympathetic, and desperately inadequate.

The chicken was probably cold again by the time Lexa  finally realized how hungry she was, pressing Clarke’s fingers reassuringly as she let go. ‘I’m sorry about this.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘Everything. I should have called, but my phone ran out of battery at the hospital and I just...I don’t know. I couldn’t think about things properly. You must have been going crazy.’

Clarke pointed to the TV, where  _ America’s Next Top Model _ was frozen mid-eyeroll. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. Tyra and I were having a lovely time without you.’

‘Good.’

‘I’m kidding.’

‘I know.’

‘I was worried, but I’m mainly just glad you’re okay.’

‘Sorry.’

‘There you go again.’

‘Sorry - I mean. I wish I’d called you.’ The ballerina pushed her plate away and winced as she leaned back. ‘Christ, I’m so tired. I didn’t realize.’

‘Did you have pain today? Is it the ankle?’

Lexa shook her head wearily. ‘Hip flexors, I think, but they always get tight at the end of the week. It’s more...my mind is simultaneously empty and so loud I can’t think straight. Is this what the fight or flight response feels like?’

Clarke leaned back beside her, curling into her, feeling her breathe. ‘You want to know what I think?’

‘You know I do.’

‘I think you’re remembering what it’s like to grieve, and that’s hard. But you’re also whole, and healthy, which is something, and you’ve got a couple of days off, which is something else. And you’re not losing anyone this time.’

‘Yeah,’ sighed Lexa, audibly trying to convince herself. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

 

***

 

‘If I have to take one more call about this I will actually scream,’ Melissa was saying through her hands as Clarke arrived at the marketing office on Monday. 

‘Actually scream,’ marvelled Titus sourly. ‘Imagine that.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I missed the part of the job description that said Head of Brand Engagement, Social Media and Official Commiserations.’

‘You’re sassy when you’re engulfed by crisis,’ tried Clarke from the open door, waving the largest variety box she’d managed to find. ‘Would commiseration chocolate help?’

‘You have no idea. I didn’t think things would be this crazy.’ Melissa reached for them, pathetically grateful. Clarke suspected that it was partly the craziness, partly the usual drag of having to share an office with Titus. ‘Nina had to take over a meeting room just to put the flowers in. We’ve been sending them to the hospital in relays.’

‘People care.’ 

Melissa nodded mournfully. ‘That’s nice, I guess. Have you come to see Lexa?’

‘I have two meetings on opposite sides of town so I thought I’d bring her some lunch on the way.’ Clarke looked at her watch. ‘Have I got the time right? I assumed the schedule was the same, but I guess under the circumstances…’

‘Are you kidding? Indra would break out of the ward if she thought things weren’t carrying on as normal. Collapsed lung or no collapsed lung.’ A fearsomely color-coded copy of the rehearsal spreadsheet appeared on her screen. ‘She’s in Studio 3. Anya had them all in to start on the new commission, but they’ll just be finishing.’

‘Thanks, Lis. Don’t let Titus eat all the chocolates.’

‘I would never dream of -’

‘It was a joke, Titus.’

Clarke wasn’t sure if she was projecting, but the atmosphere in the building seemed subdued. It was unseasonably cold for September, which didn’t help, but the closed doors of the studios still seemed more depressing than usual. Pianos could be heard tinkling dismally, pointe shoes hitting the floor in less than perfect unison, ballet-masters audibly reaching the end of their tether. As much as Indra and Kane liked to say that it wasn’t about them, they’d built a company where they were truly needed. 

‘- going to be a tough one,’ Anya was completing as Clarke reached Studio 3 and pushed the door open as noiselessly as possible. ‘It’s a new venture for me as much as it is for you, and the circumstances...are not great. None of us know how the next few months are going to pan out. But what we do know is that it’s our responsibility to carry on as usual and give our full attention to our work, whatever the outside pressures. Now more than ever.’

The ballet was going to be a big three-acter, with a full complement of corps, solo roles and principals, so there were thirty or forty dancers sat at her feet. Clarke spotted Lexa leaning against a mirror with Lincoln, faces carefully expressionless, and Octavia with a group of the other corps girls. The mood ranged from resigned to mutinous. It struck Clarke as odd; she’d been expecting concern rather than resentment. 

‘Okay, thanks. Give the music a listen before next time. If there is a next time.’ Anya was never exactly a ray of sunshine, but this was  _ weird. _  ‘You’re free to go.’

‘Clarke!’ Lexa looked happy to see her, which was normal, but also somehow relieved, which wasn’t. ‘I thought you had meetings all day?’

‘André decided he wanted to meet at the magazine not the workshop, so that cut down on travel time, and I’m seeing Carmel after this so you were on the way. I brought that salad you like.’ Clarke kissed her, confused, as they joined the stream of dancers leaving the studio. ‘What’s going on?’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Everyone looks like someone’s just kicked their favorite puppy.’

Lexa sighed and held the door open for her. ‘Can we just...not talk about it for a while? Tell me about your meeting. Did you get your way about Testino?’

‘I always get my way.’

The break room was already full, but the dancers on the nearest couch scrambled to make space for them, or at least enough space for Lexa to sit down - ‘Just take the damn seat, Lex, I can sit down whenever’ - and Clarke to perch on the armrest with her feet tucked under the ballerina’s legs. Clarke handed over the box of salad and expanded willingly on her meeting, the test shots they’d looked at for the upcoming feature, the baffling inadequacies of the very expensive stylist they’d hired for it, until she suddenly became very aware that the lunchtime chatter around them had died down to almost nothing. She started to turn to look around. ‘What’s -’

‘Just keep talking,’ said Lexa calmly, but there was a tense set to her jaw. ‘Will you style the shoot yourself, then?’

Clarke went on, uneasily, now fully convinced that something had gone wrong; more wrong than just losing Indra and Kane. Lexa listened almost too intently, eyes fixed on Clarke’s, until something made her stiffen visibly.  _ ‘Lex. _  Seriously, what the -’

She broke off as Lexa got to her feet smoothly to greet an older woman who had just approached - a kiss on each cheek, European-style. The woman was probably in her late forties or early fifties, strong-featured, glacially good-looking. ‘Lexa. It’s been a long time.’

‘Ten years.’

‘Only nine, I think. At my age you can’t afford to wish the time away.’

‘The thought never crossed my mind.’ Lexa was usually professionally good at small talk, but this looked an effort. ‘The last time we spoke you were probably passing on your wisdom.’

‘By the looks of it, you didn’t need it.’

‘Not at all.’ Another frosty pause - the whole thing was borderline hostile - before Lexa remembered Clarke and gestured thankfully. ‘I’m sorry, this is Clarke. Clarke Griffin.’

‘Oh, yes. Costume design for the new full-length commission?’ Clarke, bemused, felt her hand being shaken. ‘We’ll speak about that soon. Don’t let me keep you; I know your break’s nearly over. Just wanted to...check in.’

‘Sure.’

The woman moved off through the groups of dancers, pausing to greet one or two of the other principals before the door finally closed behind her. It was like the air had been let back into the room. No one raised their voices, but the tone was annoyed, even angry, full of gesticulating hands and shrugging shoulders. Lexa closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the wall with a thud. 

Clarke stared. ‘Who was that?’

‘That was Nia Koroleva,’ said Lexa shortly. ‘Former principal. Just appointed acting artistic director. And she hates my fucking guts.’


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE. Hope you like the (comparatively) speedy update!
> 
> I feel like I might have scared a few people off by warning that this fic was going to be angstier than BR. All I meant by that was that Our Heroes are going to face challenges, and things are going to go wrong for them, but they're all external problems - I'm not really interested in writing these characters in relationship difficulties. They're together now and happy together and they're going to stay that way. So I hope that's reassuring! 
> 
> As always, my askbox is open @southsouthwest for any questions, including about the ballet stuff! Not much technical detail in this chapter, but come say hi anyway.

‘Okay, stop,’ said Clarke that evening, as Lexa and Lincoln chopped vegetables at the kitchen island with alarming savagery. ‘You’ve got to give me something.’

‘She came into the break room,’ shrugged Lincoln, throwing diced onion into an enormous pan with more force than necessary. ‘They’re not supposed to do that.’

‘ _Who_ aren’t supposed to do that?’

‘Ballet staff,’ supplied Octavia gloomily from the couch.

‘We need somewhere to bitch in peace,’ explained Lexa, which would have sounded harmless were it not for the enormous knife in her hand. ‘We can’t complain about anything if we’re constantly looking over our shoulders for ballet-masters. Even Indra and Kane, who always know what we’re thinking anyway.’

‘But they know because they’re telepathic.’

‘They know because they know _us,’_ amended Lincoln quietly. ‘Not because they’ve snuck into our space and prowled.’

‘She wasn’t prowling, she came in like she fucking owned the place.’

‘Semantics,’ snapped Lexa, but she immediately looked like she regretted it. Clarke had rarely seen her so on-edge. ‘She knows how things are done so she was making some kind of point, but we won’t know what it is until we have more to go on. It was probably just a...show of strength. Showing us we can’t ignore her.’

‘Yeah, well, you’re ignoring _me._ I said _stop.’_ Clarke manoeuvred her girlfriend forcibly into an armchair and pointed at the spot on the couch beside Octavia. Lincoln sat down obediently. ‘You’re talking like you’re at war. What’s the deal?’

Lexa and Lincoln exchanged glances. Clarke threw her hands up in exasperation and went to fetch the wine bottle. ‘Okay, fine, I’ll start. Koroleva. Russian?’

‘Ukrainian. Soviet, back then. Her parents danced at the Mariinsky in St Petersburg, but they defected before she was born and set up their school over here.’ Lexa sighed. ‘They have a different way of doing things. Not bad, exactly, just different. Their traditions are very strong.’

‘Hmm. Your voice sounds like it’s bad.’

‘Doesn’t have to be. Depends what you’re looking for. Koroleva’s is a famous school, but the company’s never taken many of its graduates.’

‘Why not?’

Lexa shrugged restlessly. ‘They’re wonderful technicians, the training is second to none, but they’re not very... artistic. Nia was never much of an actor.’

‘She was terrible,’ translated Lincoln. ‘She could do any step in the world, but no imagination.’

‘Pretty much. They either turn out virtuosos or carbon-copy corps dancers, and modern directors and choreographers are more interested in people who are willing to contribute.’

Octavia passed the wine around. ‘To be fair, some of them have more spark. You’ve met Ontari, haven’t you? She trained with them, and there’s definitely _something_ going on behind her eyes.’

Clarke did remember Ontari, and couldn’t help but think that she’d be slightly scared to find out what it was. ‘So why does she hate you so much? Nia, I mean.’

Lincoln nudged his partner with his foot. ‘You can take this one. She definitely hates you more.’

‘Thanks.’ Lexa drained her glass and reached thankfully for the bottle. ‘Remember _Swan Lake?_ Spring season, couple of years ago?’

‘Wasn’t that the one that was on while I was in Paris for fashion week?’

‘So it was. Anyway, it’s got to be the most famous ballet in the world, and it’s one of the best. Every ballerina wants the lead. It’s a killer technically, the hardest thing you’ll ever dance, but you really have to believe it - if you let the audience see the steps you’ve failed.’ Her eyes always lit up when she talked about ballets she loved, whatever her mood. ‘But it’s not just the part itself, it’s got this whole...mythology around it. It’s special. It means _more.’_

‘Especially if you’ve got a background like Nia’s,’ put in Lincoln. ‘It’s Tchaikovsky and Petipa. The gods of Russian ballet.’

Lexa nodded. ‘She’ll have grown up dreaming of dancing it. The lead ballerina has to play two characters. The White Swan is tragic, tender, vulnerable, the Black Swan is an evil temptress who enjoys toying with her prey. You can guess which was a more natural fit for Nia.’

‘Meow,’ said Octavia gleefully. ‘It’s a dumb story really, but the ballerina can make it work if she’s good. I’d kill for it.’

Clarke sat forward. ‘Wait, wait, don’t tell me. She killed someone.’

‘If she’d killed someone we wouldn’t have to deal with her now,’ Lexa pointed out, dismayingly wistful. ‘Like I say, acting was never her strength, so she had to wait years to get cast, but eventually she was so senior that even Indra had no choice but to put her in. We do it every three years, give or take, and I was in the back row of the corps during her first run. My first performance.’

‘I remember that,’ reflected Lincoln. ‘Indra descended from on high to come over to the school and pull you out of class, and you looked like you were about to be shot at dawn.’

‘Her second run,’ continued Lexa, pointedly ignoring him, ‘I was eighteen. Linc was twenty. We were soloists by then, but we were on the way up, and I guess giving us _Swan Lake_ was Indra and Kane’s last big test. Nia had just turned forty. She was the senior ballerina, so she got two shows, and we were the only non-principals so we got one matinee. And then Nia rolled her ankle on a jump in the dress rehearsal.’

‘The plot thickens.’

‘All that happened was that either Kane or Indra, or probably both, apparently smoked a huge amount of crack and decided that it would be a good idea for me and Lincoln to do both her shows. Opening night, and a Friday evening. They took her shows and gave them to a couple of kids and she was not impressed.’

‘And let me guess. Everybody loved you?’

‘I was going to say that the critical response was encouraging,’ said Lexa primly. ‘But it wasn’t just that. Everyone knew that I was a replacement for Nia, so almost all the reviews compared us directly. And…’ She sighed. ‘Look, Nia was a great ballerina. She really was. But the role didn’t suit her, and it did suit me. I was better, and she knew it, and I knew it, and everybody knew it.’

Clarke snorted. ‘That’s got to be the Everest of pettiness if she still hates you for that.’

‘I mean, I wouldn’t underestimate this woman’s ability to hold a grudge,’ said Lincoln mildly. ‘Maybe she’d have got over it if it had just been _Swan Lake,_ but from her perspective I guess that was when everything started to go wrong. The point where she started to feel...I don’t know. Replaced.’

‘She _felt_ forced out,’ corrected Lexa bitterly. ‘It wasn’t like that, but I think she probably went a little crazy staring the end of her career in the face. Lots of dancers do. She was still sharp, but she was getting injured more and more and they weren’t casting her as often. Started taking roles away from her because she wouldn’t have done herself justice, which they meant well, but she took it hard.’

‘So she hates you because you were going up while she was coming down?’

‘It was just bad timing.’ Lincoln hesitated. ‘Nia would say it was more than that. She made it pretty clear that she thought Lexa was actively being pushed as her replacement. New young star, whatever. But Lex earned every role she got, and it was just coincidence that Nia was losing them at the same time. It’s not as though Lexa was putting tripwires outside her dressing room, or bribing Indra.’

‘I’m right here, you know.’

‘Okay.’ Clarke sat back and took stock, not remotely reassured; it took a lot to get Lincoln angry. ‘So you replaced her in her favorite role and did it better than she did, and ever since then she’s blamed you for the way her career ended. Unfairly and inexplicably, indicating that she’s self-centered at best and deranged at worst. Why the hell did anyone think she was a suitable person to pick as artistic director?’

‘Lack of alternatives?’ hazarded Octavia. ‘Panic?’

Lexa nodded. ‘Season’s already started, all the major candidates have already got positions. From the board’s point of view it’d probably have been better if Indra and Kane had been confirmed out for the full year, but no one worth their salt is going to accept a caretaker directorship where they might be out of a job in three months.’

Octavia looked up hopefully. ‘Three months? You think they’ll be back next season?’

‘Could be. Could be six, could be a year. That’s the problem, no one knows.’

‘A year,’ repeated Lincoln, in the flat tone of one staring into the abyss. ‘It’s lucky Pike got snapped up by ATB last-minute.’

‘Fuck. Can you imagine.’

‘He’ll fit right in at Arcadian.’

There was a long silence while everyone drank glumly.

‘We’re probably just biased,’ Lexa tried later, as she shut the door behind Lincoln and Octavia. ‘She knows the company, she knows the repertoire, she knows how things are done. If she stays in her lane it’ll all be fine.’

‘And do you think she will?’

‘It’s not what I think that matters.’

‘You say that,’ sighed Clarke, putting her arms around her girlfriend’s neck, ‘but I think it might be.’

 

***

 

‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ observed Anya in a voice of doom as the waitress took their plates.

‘About the coffee?’

‘Not about the coffee. About _this.’_ Anya took in the wider world with an eloquent wave of her hand. ‘Things. In general.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I’ve just seen my astrologer and he told me that Venus is in the fourth house. Why do you think?’

Lexa reached for a discarded copy of _People_ magazine on the next table and flipped to the horoscopes in search of a smart comeback. _Something at work has been troubling you; perhaps a new boss or a change that makes you uncomfortable._ She closed it hastily. ‘Maybe this is all a big fuss over nothing. She might just sit in her office and do crosswords and it’ll be like she was never here.’

‘I don’t believe that and neither do you.’

Lexa sighed. ‘No, I don’t, but there’s nothing we can do about it until we know exactly what she’s planning. They’ve forced our hand, we have to work with her, and if we close ranks immediately we might be setting up a situation that doesn’t exist.’

‘You might be right. Well, I know you’re right. But it’s still fucking annoying.’ Anya glowered at _things, in general_ as she stretched her legs out. ‘You were always a better planner than I was.’

‘Who’s the dumb muscle now?’

‘Not going to dignify that. But you know the others will be looking to you for how to deal with this, right? They’ll take their cue from whatever you do.’

Lexa did know, and didn’t like it. ‘This isn’t some rebel alliance, and I’m not Princess Leia. I just want to dance.’

‘Princess Leia isn’t the leader of the rebel alliance.’

‘What?’

‘Raven made me watch it last weekend, and there’s this other chick in white who - you know what, doesn’t matter. Don’t give me the Billy fucking Elliott routine. You’re the prima ballerina and it’s your job to take the lead. It’d be your job even if you weren’t also queen of the liaison committee, and pathologically charismatic, and the unfortunate owner of a teflon-coated moral code.’

‘I’m not refusing to get involved, I just don’t want to...stir shit unnecessarily.’ Lexa wrapped her hands around her coffee, burning her tongue on semi-purpose to distract herself from her nagging sense of unease. ‘What are you worried about? Specifically?’

It was Anya’s turn to look uneasy. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s even all because of her. I think it’s the accident and her and the new ballet all happening at once, and I can’t help but feel like something’s going to snap.’

‘You’re not worried about the new ballet, are you?’

‘Of course I fucking am.’ Over the years Lexa had come to realize just how protective, how _parental_ Anya had been for her, down to constantly pretending that everything was under control. It was relatively new for the choreographer to be honest about the things that were bothering her. ‘I’ve never done a full-length narrative before. Not ballet, anyway. At least musicals have words, and there’ll be at least one power ballad where you can just get them to stand still and look anguished.’ The choreographer drained her own coffee in a single scalding gulp. ‘And it’s Shakespeare, of all things. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.’

‘Come on,’ chided Lexa gently. ‘You’ve barely started. And I’m with you all the way, and Clarke, and Linc and Octavia. We’ve done this before. We can do it again.’

‘Sure. But it’s not like before, is it. That’s why I’ve got the bad feeling.’

‘You just had to choose this moment to develop feelings, didn’t you.’

‘Believe me, I’d rather not have.’ Anya shoved her chair in hard as they stood to leave. ‘They’re really _fucking_ inconvenient.’

 

***

 

The relief was almost physical when Clarke opened the door that evening and found Lexa home as normal. She was sitting on the couch with her leggings rolled up to her knees and her feet in an ice bucket, absent-mindedly bending the shank of a new pointe shoe back and forth as she stared at the television.

‘It’s going to have no support left if you keep doing that.’

‘Oh, you know me. Arches of steel.’ Lexa put the shoe to one side and lifted her face for a kiss. ‘How was your day?’

‘The usual. Megan was off with one of her wet-weather migraines, again, so we’re still behind schedule.’ Clarke shed her shoes and coat, dumped her bag on the table and tucked herself comfortably under Lexa’s outstretched arm. ‘Dare I ask about yours?’

‘It was fine. But it would have been _really_ concerning if she’d managed to cause a riot on her second day, so I guess that’s what we were all expecting.’

‘Lexa.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t seem fine.’

‘I _am._ Fully functional. Groceries bought, bills paid, cat fed. Look, I even remembered to put a towel under the ice bucket.’

‘You always remember to put a towel under the ice bucket.’

‘See? I’m fine.’

‘If that’s your benchmark for ‘fine’ we may have a bigger problem.’

‘I thought we said we wouldn’t psychoanalyze each other on an empty stomach.’

‘Why, are you hungry?’

‘I could eat an entire produce aisle without asking for hummus.’

‘I guess that’s a good sign.’ Clarke relented, tugging gently at Lexa’s braid and kissing her temple. ‘Okay, go on then. Tell me about your totally fine day.’

‘It was -’

‘Don’t say fine.’

‘You got me,’ yawned Lexa, stretching like a cat, lithe and neat and effortless. ‘Rehearsals went well. Had a first go at _Rhapsody_ with Aden.’

‘How was he?’

‘Deer in the headlights, unsurprisingly but he’ll work it out. The technique is there, and he’ll be a good partner once he’s got his head around the fact that he actually has to touch me to do it.’ The ballerina rolled her eyes, severely, and Clarke poked her until she smiled. Any corps dancer could have been forgiven for freaking out at the prospect of partnering the company star, but Lexa had been fond of Aden since he pitched up at the school as a shy nine-year-old and Clarke knew how badly she wanted him to do well. _‘Concerto_ and _Sleeping Beauty_ with Linc, conditioning, PT with Denise, marked through _Symphony in C_ with Murphy. Went for lunch with Anya.’

She fell silent again, picking up the shoe and bending it back and forth against her thigh. Clarke had always been drawn to the way Lexa wasn’t afraid of stillness, so instinctively aware of her body that every movement had meaning, but it did mean that fidgeting was a sure sign of trouble. There was something she couldn’t shift.

‘Scoot.’ She pushed Lexa forwards gently and settled behind her, legs either side, starting to knead out some of the tenseness in the dancer’s back. ‘Okay, I’m only going to ask this once more, but you’re not fine, are you?’

‘Yes. Kind of. I mean, I am. But it feels...temporary.’ Lexa tipped her head back against Clarke’s shoulder. ‘We had these terrible summer storms in Virginia when I was a kid. The clouds would roll in and the air would go dead, and you’d just wait. You knew it was coming but you couldn’t do anything about it. It’s like that. No, actually, it’s worse, because at least with the thunder you knew what you were going to get.’ She pushed away the ice bucket with a flash of irritation. ‘That’s the thing. It might be nothing. She might carry on exactly the way we’re used to and keep out of things and we’ll barely notice she’s there. But we can never _know_ it’s nothing. She could make a move at any time in any direction, out of nowhere, and I feel like I’m looking over my shoulder all the time for something that may or may not ever happen.’

‘You don’t trust her.’

‘No,’ said Lexa flatly. ‘I don’t, but I also don’t know why not. I don’t have anything to go on. I’m scouting blind, and I hate that.’

Clarke passed her the fluffy socks she’d laid out ready to the side. ‘What does Anya think?’

‘Anya...isn’t taking it well. Worse than I expected. I was trying to play it down for her, which was weird.’ Lexa tucked her feet up under her with a sigh, relaxing back into Clarke’s arms. ‘I’ve never not wanted to dance. Never. And now I’m scared that I’ll wake up tomorrow, or next week, or next month, and wish I didn’t have to go.’

‘I know.’

‘I don’t want to feel like this.’

‘It’ll get better,’ Clarke tried, but she was damned if she knew how.

 

***

 

_Dancers’ Liaison Committee_

_Minutes - September 3rd_

Present: _N. Koroleva (chair), T. Gardine (Marketing Director), O. Blake, A. Crewe, L. Eastman, H. McIntyre, Z. Monroe, J. Murphy, M. Vie, L. Woods._

‘Thank you all for coming,’ Nia began, pleasantly enough, offering around the jug of water. ‘I know this committee has seen plenty of... lively debate in the past. Which is excellent, of course. So important.’

‘Vital,’ agreed Lexa after a moment of silence, Nia clearly expecting some kind of response. ‘Shall we begin?’

‘What a good idea. I’m assuming the minutes from last meeting can be passed as accurate, if you could file them, Titus?’

‘Filed.’ Titus didn’t seem overcome with joy at Nia’s reappearance either, which was unexpectedly satisfying.

‘Thank you. Before we go any further, I think I should just express both how pleased I am to be here and how sad it is that it has to be under such circumstances. Very, very unfortunate.’

Another expectant silence. Logically, Lexa knew that it made sense to at least make an effort with Nia, and she had come to the meeting with a martyred determination to do her best, but the older woman was making it bloody difficult. ‘Er. Yes.’

‘Good.’ Nia took a long, comprehending look around the conference table and glanced through her notes. ‘A fairly straightforward agenda today, I think, but I’ve made one or two small changes. As you know, the formal start-of-season press release is being sent out tomorrow, so I thought it wise to remind you all that any approaches from the media must be referred immediately to Titus or myself. As mandated by company policy. Do you have anything to add, Titus?’

‘No.’

Lincoln nudged Lexa under the table. Titus was not usually one for monosyllables.

‘Good. I’d be grateful if you would circulate that among the other dancers. It’s very important that we stay on message during this transitional period. Speaking of which...’ Nia made a small note on her agenda and put her pen down. ‘Given the situation, there are certain things which it would obviously be appropriate to put on hold until things are...settled. The most immediate being the new season promotions, which will not be announced tomorrow as planned but shelved _temporarily -’_ she raised her voice over the sudden indignation ‘- to avoid any further disruption at this already delicate time. You have something to say?’

‘Yeah, I do. That’s insane.’

‘Octavia, isn’t it?’ Nia leant forward, hands clasped on the table. ‘Octavia, I know that your name was on the list for promotion, and I understand that you’re upset on a personal level. But it’s your job as a dancers’ rep to put that aside and focus on the greater good of the company. You should know that.’

‘I’m not _upset_ ,’ snarled Octavia, ‘it just makes no fucking sense.’

‘There is no point us having these meetings if you’re not willing to be professional about them.’

‘The promotions are a done deal,’ pointed out Lexa evenly, as though neither of them had spoken. ‘They were signed off at the end of last year. There’s no reason not to go forward with making them public.’

‘It wouldn’t be in keeping with how I’d like to approach this role.’

‘That’s not really an answer, is it?’

‘I’m sorry?’

Lexa remembered her conversation with Anya and made a resolute attempt at diplomacy. ‘We all appreciate that you’re in a difficult position, and we’re willing to help in any way we can, but withholding -’

‘Postponing.’

‘- withholding promotions will make people ask more questions than it answers.’

‘It’s a management decision.’

‘The management had already made it.’

‘And the new management has decided that it’s in the common interest to delay implementation. It’s a perfectly normal business strategy, Lexa. Getting emotional about it will let everyone down.’

‘I completely agree,’ sad Lexa coldly, ‘and do stop me if I start to descend into hysteria, but there is absolutely no logical reason for withdrawing one of Indra and Kane’s decisions in the name of maintaining continuity with their leadership.’

‘I don’t remember saying anything about continuity.’

Lexa sat perfectly still, trying to work out if that meant what she thought it did. Apart from Octavia, who was visibly seething, the entire table seemed to be doing the same. The whole point of an interim appointment was to maintain continuity. It was implied. It was expected. And if she wasn’t interested in continuity...

This time it was Lincoln, the other ranking principal, who spoke first. ‘Help us out, then. If it’s not continuity, what is it?’

‘I believe the word I used was transitional.’

Maya looked scandalized. ‘Transition into _what?’_

‘What else is suddenly up for debate?’ cut in Harper. ‘Casting? Repertoire?’

‘Both of those things are constantly under review, as you well know.’ Nia raised her eyebrows. ‘There is no reason for this bizarre level of distress. These decisions have always rested in the hands of the artistic director. Nothing has changed.’

‘Yet.’

‘Excuse me?’

It was Aden who had spoken, the youngest and the most junior, but he clearly had no intention of backing down. ‘Transition is a prelude to change, right? And it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when you come in for work one day and suddenly find yourself in a transitional period, without knowing what you’re transitioning into, or why, or what it’s going to look like.’

Nia’s hands were still clasped on the table, unyielding. _‘Nothing has changed._ The situation is exactly the same as it was before this meeting. I am in a difficult position, as Lexa so helpfully pointed out, and the only conclusion I can draw from the extreme nature of your objections is that you are predisposed to obstruct any decision I may try to make. In which case, that position becomes impossible. But I will remind you that the company needs an artistic director if it is to function properly, and if I cannot do my job, everyone will suffer.’

Lexa felt like she was hearing everything with a three second delay. It was hostile but not, provocative but not, words that could have been reasonable paired with a tone that was somehow anything but. It was just measured and mild enough for her to wonder if she was imagining the danger.

The others seemed to be having similar trouble processing what they were hearing. Lincoln was staring blankly at Nia. Octavia looked like she’d been interrupted in the middle of planning a murder. No one responded this time, the dancers sitting in furious silence, until Nia herself gathered up her papers. ‘I don’t think there is any point continuing this meeting. We will reconvene when you are more...open to discussion. Which I’m sure,’ with an expression that wasn’t quite a smile, ‘will be soon.’

It took all of Lexa’s legendary self-control not to slam the door on the way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer for ballet nerds: yes, I know that no company in the world announces promotions at the start rather than the end of season. But the DRAMA.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates within the same calendar month?! Yeah. Who am I and what have I done with Carey. 
> 
> Posting this at 20.35 UK time on New Year's Eve, so here's hoping you have a very happy 2018 and we all get what we most want in life. #impeachment

‘Are we going to _do_ something about this?’ hissed Octavia in a debatably successful undertone as they left the room.

Lexa took her arm and marched her firmly down the corridor into an empty office, in the opposite direction from where Nia would be heading. Lincoln followed, closing the door behind him. ‘And what do you suggest?’

‘Tell Indra and Kane that their _temporary replacement_ is showing disturbing signs of megalomania?’

‘They’re literally comatose. Anything else?’

‘Go on strike?’

Lexa sat down at the desk with a sigh. ‘We can’t. Going on strike is poisonous for the company. If we don’t rehearse we can’t perform, and if we don’t perform the ticket-holders will throw tantrums, and the critics will pick it up, and the publicity will be horrible. We can only strike if it’s for a reason that the public and the media will respect, and this isn’t one.’

Octavia visibly deflated. ‘But it _is_ important, right? I’m not just being a selfish bitch because I want to be a soloist?’

Lincoln slung an arm around her neck and kissed the top of her head, trying to reassure her. ‘It’s important to us. And she shouldn’t have done it. But that’s not enough to strike on.’

‘Yeah, I know. I do know that, it’s just…’ Octavia waved a hand incredulously. ‘Did you hear what she said?’

‘Vividly.’

‘Is she fucking with us?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Lexa, come on.’

‘It’s...I don’t know. I genuinely don’t. She went in harder than she had to, and that has to mean something, but we still don’t know where she’s going with it.’ Lexa pinched the bridge of her nose, hard, trying to discourage the impending headache, and looked up at Lincoln. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t like it,’ he said bluntly. ‘She wasn’t talking like a caretaker director. It sounded more as though she’s gunning for something permanent.’

Octavia bit her lip. ‘Does she know something we don’t? About Indra and Kane?’

‘I don’t see where she’d have got it from.’

‘The board? The trustees?’

Lexa shook her head. ‘Even if - _if_ \- they knew that Indra and Kane wouldn’t be able to come back, they could get into all sorts of legal trouble if they promised Nia a permanent job before it was confirmed. Hints, maybe, but they won’t have offered anything solid beyond her fixed-term contract.’

‘It might just be first-week nerves,’ suggested Lincoln optimistically. ‘She might be trying to set down a marker early. Assert her authority. It must be hard for an outsider to come into a place like this and have to throw their weight around from the beginning.’

Octavia slapped the back of his head gently. ‘You’re way too nice for your own good.’

‘You don’t think that could be it?’

‘I think she’s a heartless, manipulative, power-hungry despot intent on destroying us and our way of life.’

‘That would be a no then.’

‘I love you, but I think you’re totally, adorably wrong.’ Octavia nodded at Lexa. ‘We both do.’

‘Don’t drag me into this.’

‘I don’t hear you agreeing with him.’

Lexa winced as she stood up, muscles protesting as they always did at the end of a long day. ‘No first-week nerves. And no strike action. Let’s just stay alert, and get on with season, and try not to give her an excuse to kick off.’

Octavia looked dubious. ‘You mean do nothing.’

‘For now.’

 

***

 

With her hour-long meeting unexpectedly cut to ten minutes, Lexa found herself making the walk to Clarke’s studio. She liked the mindlessness of wandering through the city, letting her brain switch off and her legs take her to where they wanted to be, and even at the best of times they always brought her back to Clarke eventually.

Clarke was on her knees in front of a mannequin, but her eyes lit up as she saw Lexa picking her way through the bustle of drapers and tables and swags of fabric, and she smiled before she remembered that she had been holding several pins in her mouth. ‘Fuck.’

‘Maybe later.’

‘I’ll hold you to that. Four, five, six, think that’s all of them. Why is there never a pincushion around when I need one?’

Lexa scanned the nearest table and handed one over. ‘Are you busy tonight?’

‘Not once this is done.’ The designer dusted off her knees as she stood. _‘Ow._ Seven. I thought you were at liaison committee?’

‘I was.’

‘But it’s only...Oh. _Oh._ Surely she can’t have kicked you out?!’

The rational part of Lexa’s mind - the part which wasn’t exhausted, or furious, or manically playing a single phrase of Rachmaninov on repeat - wondered if Nia was actually allowed to do that, and made a mental note to look up the union rules. ‘Let’s just say the discussion was nasty, brutish and short.’

‘What the hell is wrong with her? Most dictators at least wait until they’ve seized the means of production.’ Clarke held up two fingers to someone behind Lexa’s back - _two minutes_ \- and took the dancer’s hands. ‘Let me try to get this finished by seven and we can go get dinner. Takeout and Netflix. Or skip straight to chill.’

‘I’m a complex emotional being. You can’t just fix me with sex.’

‘It’s clinically proven to relieve stress.’ Clarke’s breath grazed her ear as she passed to deal with the latest pressing fashion emergency. ‘And at the very least it’ll give you something else to think about.’

 

***

 

‘Fine,’ conceded Lexa once she managed to remember her own name, ‘that helped.’

Clarke collapsed onto her back and managed to huff out a laugh. ‘It helped me, that’s for sure.’

‘I thought you said this was all about me.’

‘Give a girl two orgasms before she’s even eaten dinner and she still thinks it wasn’t about her.’

‘Maybe I was too busy thinking about how hungry I am.’

‘You’re a pain in the ass, Woods, you know that?’ The designer’s exasperation would have been more convincing if she hadn’t been so transparently delighted to hear Lexa laugh. ‘Pass me my phone, I’ll order something. Thai?’

‘Please. Lots. And do you remember if that bag of ice is still in the freezer?’ Lexa made an attempt to sit before she seized up on the spot, but Clarke groaned and dragged her back with her free hand. ‘No, no, absolutely fucking not, no actual person needs an ice bath to recover from sex.’

‘The ice bath and the sex are completely unrelated,’ replied Lexa with dignity, but it didn’t take much persuasion to make her melt back against the pillows, boneless and comfortably blissed-out. ‘Mmmph. Maybe I’ll quit my job and we’ll live on your fashion money, and I’ll become one of those society hostesses who stays in bed all day until it’s time to dress for dinner.’

‘As much as I’d love to see you in a real tiara, one, you’d go mad in a week and two, it does make me a tiny, _tiny_ bit nervous when you talk about quitting your job. Given the circumstances.’ Clarke tapped the last few buttons to finish the takeout order and rolled over to face her. ‘You wanna talk now?’

‘What was that you said about orgasms?’

‘Lex.’

‘I know, I know. I just wish there was more to say.’ Lexa drummed her fingers restlessly on the headboard, oddly nervous. ‘You’d tell me if I was being crazy, right? It’s just. I don’t like her very much.’

‘I noticed.’

‘I don’t like her, and I expect the worst from her, and I worry that it’s making me crazy.’

‘Lexa, you’re literally globally renowned for your discipline and focus.’

‘It’s not the same.’

Clarke smiled and took her hand, lacing their fingers together. ‘No, it’s not. I know. But you’re the clearest thinker I know, and I promise I’ll say something the second I see you jump to conclusions, and now you have to tell me about liaison committee before the tension kills me.’

‘If you’re tense, I hear that sex is clinically proven to relieve -’

‘I will fucking _end_ you.’

Lexa grinned, but it faded as she thought over the meeting. ‘It was... weirdly confrontational. It didn’t need to be, and I thought I’d gone in with an open mind, but it just descended. And I’m already so fucking paranoid that I’m still not totally sure who started it.’

‘I can guess who started it,’ said Clarke shortly, ‘but go on.’

‘Her media training reminder was on the aggressive side. She’s put the promotions on hold. And she said all this bizarre stuff about transition and was disturbingly keen to correct me when I talked about continuity instead.’

‘Hold up a sec. She’s canceled the fucking promotions?’

‘Postponed, apparently, but it’s not like she gave any hints about how long for.’

‘Octavia’s been excited about that for _months._ All summer.’

‘She and, what, six others. Promotions are a huge deal. They mean everything. The prestige, the roles you get, the salary - that’s a point, I wonder what she’s told the accountants.’

‘Can she _do_ that?’

‘Evidently she can.’

Clarke was apparently lost for words, and Lexa, who for once could have expressed her feelings with considerable fluency, had reached the point where it felt like there _was_ no point. She felt like she was chasing the wind, trying to hold back smoke with her hands, powerless in the face of something dangerous but too insubstantial to fight. It was a strange feeling for someone raised in the gospel of hard work, used to problems that went away if you faced them. _What did I ever do to deserve a teflon-coated moral code anyway._

‘I already hate this,’ sighed Clarke after a while. ‘I hate that you’re walking this fucking tightrope at work and there’s nothing I can do about it. I hate seeing you look like you did this evening.’

‘I don’t know. I kind of like that you’re not involved. Not yet, at least.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Don’t you have your consult with Anya next week? At the theater?’

‘In Nia’s territory, you mean?’ Clarke fell silent, tracing a fingertip across the fine muscles of Lexa’s stomach, before hoisting herself up onto one arm. Her eyes were full of the sincere, weighty kind of tenderness that Lexa could only bear to look at for so long. ‘I want to be safe for you.’

‘You are.’

‘I don’t want this to overwhelm you.’

‘I won’t let it.’ Lexa pushed her sweat-streaked hair back off her face. ‘I honestly think it’ll get easier. Either she’ll settle in, and the tension will wear off, or she’ll do something worse and we can get angry.’

‘Uh huh. That does sound better.’

‘It would be. I’d rather have a solid reason to hate her and an excuse to do something about it, than...whatever this is. Stumbling around watching our backs and keeping our heads down. I’m not good at that.’

‘You weren’t built for it,’ said Clarke quietly. ‘You were made to look things in the eye. Which I guess doesn’t help you right now.’

‘But it will.’

She was _tired,_ crushingly tired, and it was at least half because she didn’t know when she would be able to rest.

 

***

 

_The City Ballet Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Nia Koroleva as Acting Artistic Director of the company. The Artistic Directors, Marcus Kane and Indra Shourona, will be absent until further notice for health reasons. Ms Koroleva trained under her mother Nadia Koroleva, formerly of the Mariinsky Ballet, before joining City Ballet as an apprentice in 1990. She was promoted to Principal Dancer in 1997, becoming famed for her unparalleled technique across the repertoire, and retired in a gala performance before embarking on a career coaching and staging across the world._

_‘I am delighted to be back at City Ballet but it is bittersweet to return under such circumstances,’ said Ms Koroleva Monday. ‘I have counted Marcus and Indra as friends throughout my career and I wish them all the best for a speedy recovery. It will be a pleasure and an honor to build on their legacy.’_

_Please refer all queries to Titus Gardine, Marketing Director._

Lexa forwarded Clarke the email without comment. It seemed safer.

 

***

 

‘Aden.’

‘Mmm?’

‘You’re pacing.’

‘I’m _visualizing.’_

‘You’re pacing, and it’s just going to psych you out.’ Lexa gestured with her scissors. ‘Sit down. Talk to me.’

Aden dropped down beside her on the studio floor, stretching his legs out in front of him. ‘About what?’

‘You tell me. Something’s clearly bothering you.’

‘I’m pretty sure something’s bothering _you.’_

‘Nice try, but I asked first. Lighter.’

‘What?’

‘You’re sitting on my lighter.’

‘Oh. Here, I can do that.’ There was a lull, interrupted only by the flick of the flame, as Aden reached for the bundle of ribbons and elastics and began to burn the ends. Lexa took the first pair he handed to her and started to stitch, letting him stew until eventually his thoughts got too loud for the silence. ‘What was the first partnering you ever did? Proper repertoire, I mean?’

‘Oh, man.’ Lexa tried to remember; her first pas de deux class at the school felt like a hundred years ago. ‘Second movement of _Concerto,_ maybe? It’s a good starter piece. Lyrical but precise.’

‘With Lincoln?’

‘Yeah.’

Aden nodded, unsurprised. ‘And the first time you did _Rhapsody_ was with Lincoln as well, right? The year you made principal. A whole bunch of us got permission to come see you.’

‘I remember.’

‘And the second time was with him as well. Four years ago, on the Ashton triple bill.’

‘Where are you going with this, Aden?’

A little shrug of the shoulders. _Surely it’s obvious._ ‘Why not this time? Why me?’

Lexa hesitated, drumming her fingers against the sole of the shoe in her hand. ‘Why not you?’

‘Because I’m barely out of school, and you’re... _you._ I basically have no business going anywhere near you. And you’re used to Lincoln, and he’s just so…’

‘So what?’

‘Large.’

‘You’ve been able to deadlift me since you were sixteen, you don’t have to be built like a linebacker. And good partnering is only ten percent strength.’

‘And the other ninety percent?’

Lexa put the shoe down and rubbed the back of her neck as she thought about it, looking for the words to explain feelings that, over the years, she’d come to take for granted; the absolute safety she felt in Lincoln’s arms, the soaring weightlessness of a perfect lift, the addictive rush of constantly balancing on the brink of disaster and pulling each other back every time. ‘Partnering shouldn’t be complicated. The choreography might be, but that’s just steps. All you need to dance with someone is patience, and reflexes, and the willingness to learn each other’s bodies and styles and share the blame when things go wrong. And you _have_ all of that. You don’t have to be a virtuoso to be a good partner. You don’t have to be Lincoln, or Kane, or Nureyev. You’re enough as you are.’

Aden scoffed, sending the ribbons fluttering. ‘It would be a hell of a lot easier if I was one of them, though.’

‘There’s your answer. That’s why you’re doing this.’ He was clicking the lighter restlessly and Lexa gently prised open his death-grip around it, forcing him to look at her. ‘You’re ready. You’ve done your training, you’ve worked hard, you know what you’re doing. This is the best way you can learn now. From being my partner, and trusting me to get you through it.’

Aden looked at her incredulously. ‘Of course I trust you. That’s not...that was never the issue. It’s me. It’s trusting myself. And sure, I know it’s a process and a marathon not a sprint and everything, but _Rhapsody_ is an absolute fucking killer and I don’t want to let you down.’

‘Okay, look.’ Lexa’s tone was businesslike, but she squeezed his hand gently. ‘I’m your partner now, not your teacher, and I don’t want to sound like one, but you won’t let me down if you just work at it and give yourself a chance. This is my job, Aden. As a senior dancer. Everyone needs opportunities when they start out, and each one makes the next easier, and better, and that’s the point. That’s all I want. And we’ll get there.’

‘I can do that.’ Aden gave her a small smile, pensive, before sighing and flopping over onto his back. ‘I’m just always sure I’m gonna drop you.’

‘Second rule of partnering. Never talk about dropping your ballerina.’

‘What’s the first rule?’

‘Never drop your ballerina.’

‘You’re not funny.’

‘You’re not going to drop me.’

‘If I did, the entire audience would storm the stage and lynch me.’

‘I’d kill you myself,’ said Lexa seriously, ‘which is why it’s lucky it will never, ever happen.’

 

***

 

‘Well look who it is,’ said Raven cheerfully, glancing up from her appointment schedule as Lexa trailed through the door. ‘Everyone’s favorite patient.’

‘I know you have a dartboard with my face on in the PT office.’

‘That was a joke. Mostly. And totally not my idea.’ Raven only spent one day a week at the company - the plate on her door said ‘consultant rehabilitation specialist’ - but she was in demand for everything. ‘You know you don’t have to make an appointment with me, right? I’ll see you whenever you need.’

Lexa shook her head wearily. ‘I don’t like coming for PT at the best of times. If I feel like you’re always on call I’ll start to hate you.’

‘Got it. Full separation.’ Raven gestured to the physio table. ‘Hop up, then. Sorry to change my day, but I thought it made sense to come when Anya has to be in too. We’re going straight to date night. Dinner, some ridiculous arthouse movie that she can mock while I eat popcorn, and paying the uber driver an obscene tip for the privilege of watching while we -’

‘I don’t need to know the rest.’

‘Only messing. Straight to bed with hot milk and an audiobook.’ Lexa rolled her eyes as the physiotherapist winked aggravatingly. ‘Okay, let’s have a look. Is this just routine, or are you hurting?’

‘Hah.’

‘More than usual?’

Lexa settled on the table face down and lowered herself onto her arms. ‘Alignment. Something’s out of whack. Not badly, but I could feel it in class this morning.’

‘Has your turnout been bothering you?’

‘Not particularly. Just one of those things.’

‘You know, it always amazes me how you dancers just suck this stuff up. Athletes - sport athletes - are total wimps in comparison.’ Raven checked her over experimentally, hands warm and reassuring. ‘Well, your pelvis is level, but I’ll work at it a little just in case. And I’ll take a look at your ankle while you’re here.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Probably. But you know I like to keep an eye on it.’

Once she was satisfied that no one was going to tell her she was dying, Lexa didn’t completely hate the appointments. If nothing else, it was a welcome opportunity to lie down. The treatments were usually too uncomfortable for her to zone out fully, but they still gave her space to think, going over new steps in her head or memorizing corrections from her rehearsal. Raven knew it, and didn’t keep up the stream of hairdresser-like small talk that some of the junior clinical staff went in for. There were benefits to having a physio who was practically your sister-in-law.

Still, there were days when she broke her own rule. ‘Lex?’

‘Mmm?’

‘How did Anya seem to you when you had lunch with her last week?’

Lexa sighed and propped herself up on her arms. ‘Not...great. Let’s just say she was definitely on Sarcasm Level 4.’

‘Yeah - push back against my hand? - that’s what I thought too. How’s your balance been on this leg?’

‘Fine, I think. Haven’t noticed anything. Has she told you what’s wrong?’

‘Okay. Now push the other way? Good.’ Raven put Lexa’s foot down gently and rolled her chair around to the side so they could see each other’s faces. ‘She didn’t, but I think it’s the new ballet. I don’t know if she’s got choreographer’s block or something - is that even a thing?’

‘Probably.’

‘Well, maybe it’s that, but she’s stressed about it, and I was wondering if it’s to do with the new boss. How are you feeling about it all?’

‘You don’t want to know.’ Lexa knew she wasn’t the best at putting her emotions into words - she was used to precision, perfection, and words could be clumsy - but lately she had been feeling more and more trapped in one-word answers and monosyllables, and she was sick of it. Which made her snappy, which made her guilty, which made it worse. ‘I don’t know myself. It’s too early to say. No one has any idea what to expect, and if anything’s bothering Anya, it’s that. She likes knowing her enemy.’

‘Who doesn’t?’ Raven checked her watch and rubbed Lexa’s ankle comfortingly as she stood. ‘Don’t let it distract you, yeah? Dance smart, like you always do, and you’ll be fine. And if you could just...look out for Anya, I’d be grateful.’

No-one had ever actually asked her to look out for Anya before. It had always been the other way around, and it jarred to hear it; but then she heard herself saying ‘I always do,’ and it felt like the truth.

 

***

 

‘I stopped on the way. Thought you could use a coffee.’ Clarke paused in the doorway and laughed out loud as she saw Anya, legs kicked up irreverently on the table, with two coffees in front of her. ‘Great minds. This bodes well.’

‘Maybe these are both for me.’ Anya rolled her eyes and grinned reluctantly as Clarke sat down. ‘Okay, let’s see where we are. I know it’s early days, but since this is the first time you’ve had to dress a cast of thousands I thought you’d appreciate having some idea of scale.’

Clarke flipped open her macbook. ‘Hit me.’

They’d discussed it in general terms before, of course, debating timeframes and costings before the two of them had signed their contracts, but it was still daunting to hear exactly what she was in for. _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , three acts, three casts, twenty-one featured roles which would need individual looks, and assorted fairies. The costumes would be made up in the company costume shop, so it wasn’t like Clarke’s own studio would have to accommodate the extra work, but the sheer amount of designing would be challenge enough.

‘We’ll need three copies of each of the leading principal costumes, one each. The corps will be able to double up, but ballerinas don’t like sharing. As I’m sure you’re intimately aware. So that’s...I’d rather not count, but if you prioritize the principals, it’ll be easier to turn out lots the same towards the business end. The costume staff will tell you the timetable they need to be working on.’

‘Have you done the casting yet?’

‘Lexa and Lincoln will be first-cast Titania and Oberon. It’ll give Linc a chance to be a bit of a dick onstage instead of being gallant and handsome all the time, and we’ll all enjoy watching Lexa having to fall in love with a donkey.’ Anya paused, tantalizingly. ‘And I’ve put Octavia down to create Hermia.’

‘You have?’ Clarke was no Shakespearean, but she’d struggled determinedly through the play rather than let her visualization be influenced by watching the movie, and Hermia was a key character - feisty, headstrong, running away to the forest with her lover rather than going through with an arranged marriage. ‘It’s _perfect_ for her. Does she know yet? She’ll be over the moon.’

‘She knows she’s learning it, but she doesn’t know she’s first cast yet. At least…’ Anya trailed off suddenly, unfamiliarly uncertain. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. I want her in the premiere, but casting is always a bit fluid for new works, just because some people learn faster than others and sometimes you have to mix and match based on who’s ready first. Octavia’s always been pretty good at picking up new choreography, but...In fact, would you mind not telling her anything?’

Clarke sat back, flipping her phone over in her fingers. Anya could be abrasive, even harsh, but that was partly because she always told the truth; she never saw the need to dress things up or dodge difficult conversations. Asking Clarke to keep such an insignificant secret, let alone from Octavia, wasn’t in her vocabulary.

She pushed back, just a little. ‘Surely you might as well tell her? She’ll work even harder if she knows the first night is on the line.’

‘I would, normally, but I’m not sure if we’re working under the normal rules any more.’

‘You mean -’

‘Am I interrupting?’

Clarke might only have met Nia once, but she’d heard enough about her that the voice from the doorway already inspired the resentful anger usually associated with people she’d known and hated for years.

Nia didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I saw that Anya had booked the room and thought I might drop in for ten minutes. Just getting up to speed on everything that’s happening.’ She smiled, almost convincingly. ‘Taking over a company has its challenges.’

‘Sit down,’ invited Anya, without enthusiasm. ‘I’d offer you a coffee, but these are cold.’

‘Thank you, but I try not to rely on stimulants. Please, carry on. I’m just here to observe.’

‘Where were we.’ Anya adjusted her chair subtly so that Nia was out of her line of sight. ‘You were saying?’

Clarke sensed that casting was probably a danger topic and tried to remember what they’d been talking about before. ‘Yeah. I think the main issue for the fairies is going to be wings. Going for something stiff and wired risks coming off a bit kid-playing-dress-up. So I thought, rather than that, if we just had something that _suggested_ wings -’

‘May I?’

Anya closed her eyes briefly and turned an insincere smile on the older woman. ‘You’re the artistic director. I’d say you probably may.’

‘Thank you so much. I just wondered whether we might be wise to steer clear of anything too...avant garde.’

‘I wasn’t aware either of us had that kind of reputation.’

Nia inclined her head, not quite a shrug, not quite agreement or concession. ‘You’re very much a modern choreographer, and Clarke’s background is in high fashion. Which I’m sure she excels in, but no one would ever claim that haute couture was…accessible.’

Clarke tried to smile. ‘They’re supposed to be fairies. Perhaps inaccessibility is a good thing.’

‘In a narrowly literal sense, maybe, but it’s important to look at the bigger picture.’

‘Why don’t you describe this picture to us,’ said Anya blandly. Clarke wondered if Nia knew the choreographer well enough to detect the constrained irritation behind the words. ‘Just so we know what we’re working with.’

Nia spread her hands. ‘Think about which ballets have the biggest profit margins. _Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle._ Traditional productions, in keeping with what audiences know and love. Speaking as somebody who wants to ensure the company's financial health for years to come, it seems clear that this is the pattern we ought to be following.’

‘Those only turn the biggest profits because marketing hike up the prices when they’re on,’ argued Clarke, who hadn’t let her steady diet of free tickets insulate her from the problems of the common ballet-goer. ‘The other programmes sell out too.’

‘Perhaps, but I can’t justify charging _Swan Lake_ rates for an untested piece of new choreography.’

Anya raised her eyebrows. ‘When Lexa’s in something you could price the orchestra stalls at a thousand dollars a seat and they'd still sell out in half an hour.’

‘Ah, yes. Lexa.’ Nia nodded pensively. ‘I can’t help but feel as though she’s given rather too much to do. It’s not fair on her or the other dancers that she should carry so much of the high-profile work.’

‘I think she’s an exceptional asset and the company is lucky to have her,’ said Anya coldly. Clarke didn’t trust herself to speak. ‘I assume that’s what you were referring to?’

‘Oh, obviously, although...Well, never mind, it was just a thought. My wider point stands.’

‘No, actually, I’m not sure it does.’ The choreographer’s tone was just just too clipped to be polite. ‘The company isn’t a museum piece, and art isn’t static. Even _Swan Lake_ was new once. If we don’t create as well as replicate, what the hell are we for?’

‘Nor does art exist in a vacuum,’ shot back Nia, without missing a beat. ‘I live in the real world, even if you don’t, and this production - _your_ production - has to earn money. You’ve seen the figures, the outlay is stupendous. Far too large to be taken on faith alone.’

‘No one -’ Anya’s jaw was clenched so hard that Clarke worried about its structural integrity ‘- is going to pay to see a cautious, cut-price, third-rate excuse for a ballet where the fairies belong in pantomime and the sets wobble whenever a pointe shoe hits the floor. I understand the finance, and this has been _budgeted for.’_

‘There’s creating, and then there’s going too far. Let’s not frighten the horses, hmm?

Clarke slammed her laptop shut. ‘I am a professional, Ms Koroleva. I know what I’m doing. And since Indra and Kane have always been perfectly happy to trust me and let me get on with doing my job, I can’t help but wonder whether _you_ do.’

‘We’ve clearly got off on the wrong foot, so I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’ The older woman’s smile was pantherine up close. ‘But I am not Indra, or Kane, and I’m willing to take any and all necessary steps to keep this company on track. So I will be monitoring your progress, because it’s my job, and I am entirely within my rights to do so.’ She stood, coolly, taking her time. ‘Give my regards to Lexa. She looked rather tired in class.’

She didn’t bother to close the door.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazingly, a mere two weeks later, here we are AGAIN...

It was two weeks before the hospital would let anyone except family visit Indra and Kane; long enough to bring them both out of the induced comas and build up their strength to the point where they could sustain a conversation longer than three sentences. Indra had broken almost everything within reach - two collapsed lungs, two legs, a wrist, a collarbone and several ribs - while Kane had a shattered scapula, crushed tibia and head injuries.

‘It’ll look worse than it is,’ predicted Clarke.

Lexa always insisted on doing the driving when she was feeling under the gun about something, and her face was impassive as she navigated the rush-hour traffic. ‘I dread to think what it’ll look like, then.’

‘I’m serious. Broken bones sound scary and look dramatic, but they heal well. I’m not saying they’ll ever dance petit allegro again -’

‘Ten points to Gryffindor for correct terminology use.’

‘- but they’ll be able to walk, and work, and teach. Although I can’t promise Indra will be doing any more triathlons.’

She won the ghost of a smile. ‘Her competitors had better send flowers.’

Lexa had called ahead, and the doctor nodded as she explained who she was, but Clarke was apparently a surprise. ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea for both of you to go in.’

‘I won’t say anything,’ promised Clarke. ‘I’ll just be there. They know me, it won’t cause any distress.’

The doctor smiled wryly. ‘It’s not a question of distress, it’s purely whether they’ll have the energy to focus on two people at once. You’re welcome to try, but they still tire easily, and you’ll need to leave as soon as that happens.’

‘Understood.’

It did look worse than it was, but it didn’t make reassuring viewing. Clarke heard Lexa’s breath catch for a moment as a nurse pushed the door open for them, and it was hard not to panic just slightly at the sight of Indra - strong, endlessly capable Indra - wired up to machines and looking more cast than person.

‘Who got you in this mess, then?’ said the ballerina lightly as she sat down by the pillows.

‘Doubtless some incompetent child with too much money and a death wish.’ Indra’s voice was scratchy with disuse, but she was making a stubborn effort. ‘Hello, Lexa. Clarke.’

‘Hey, Indra.’ Clarke waved from the doorway. ‘Don’t mind me, Lexa’s going to do all the talking. Doctor’s orders.’

‘What utter rubbish.’

‘Funny. Last time I was here you told me that the doctor’s word was law and if I so much as moved without permission you’d fire me.’

‘After which you discharged yourself against medical advice.’

‘And nearly got pneumonia as a result, so I know what I’m talking about.’ The tone was stern, but Clarke recognized the tenderness in her expression. ‘We brought you some fruit. How are you feeling?’

‘As expected. I spend most of my time asleep, which is tiresome. Makes it difficult to...concentrate.’ Indra cleared her throat painfully. ‘How is Nia doing? I cannot pretend she would have been my first choice, but I understand why…’ Her throat had already closed up again and she had to pause for breath. ‘Damnation. Why the board felt they had to move quickly. Is everything on track?’

 _This is it,_ thought Clarke, bracing herself, but Lexa just smiled, relaxed and genuine. ‘Nia’s fine, Indra. It was slow going to begin with, but we’re all doing well. The schedule is a killer, of course, but I seem to remember you were the one who set that up for us.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ said the ballet-master tartly, but she was audibly weaker.

‘I know you do.’

‘There’s a middle ground. Prepared but healthy. Someone has to make sure you - stay in it.’ A spasm of pain flashed across her face. ‘Clarke, will you call a nurse, please.’

‘Indra?’

‘It’s nothing, Lexa, just -’

Clarke left in a hurry, but she saw the agonized look in Lexa’s eyes as she reached out to grab the older woman’s hand, and had to bite her lip hard to stave off the lump in her own throat.

Kane was asleep when they stopped by, and the nurse flatly refused to wake him. ‘It’s not a good time. He needs rest above everything.’

‘Yes, of course. Thank you. Sorry.’ Lexa nodded mechanically, but she didn’t actually move until Clarke took her elbow to guide her out of the sea of oncoming scrubs. ‘Sorry. I was just - this way’s quicker.’

‘I forgot this was where you got your ankle fixed.’

Lexa had clearly spent a lot of time in that hospital, even if it was six years ago, because she led the way down to the parking lot like she wasn’t seeing any of it. Luckily for everyone, she had Indra’s ability to clear people out of her path through sheer force of personality. Clarke kept casting sideways glances at her, almost jogging to keep up, and realized that the ballerina was in the kind of headspace she usually only entered when she was alone - or thought she was alone - in the studio, where nothing existed except herself and the girl in the mirror and a particular step or combination she couldn’t work out how to solve.

She was very pale by the time they got to the car, and still looked like her body was operating entirely on autopilot, and Clarke held out her hand uncompromisingly. ‘Keys.’

Lexa passed them over wordlessly and climbed in the passenger seat without a murmur of protest, which was worrying in itself. Clarke saw a sigh fog up the window as she leaned against it, a token collapse that would be gone by the time the designer made it round to the driver’s side, and wondered uneasily whether it had been a good idea to come after all. She adjusted the seat and all the mirrors, twice, and fiddled with the radio to find the one music station they could both tolerate, and turned the engine on and then off again, tapping her fingers on the wheel while she tried to decide what to say. ‘You’re an alarmingly good liar, Lex.’

Lexa shook her head reflexively, startled out of her reverie. ‘What? Oh. I grew up at boarding school, I had to be.’ She tipped her head back with a long breath and closed her eyes. ‘I couldn’t tell her.’

‘I know.’

‘She’ll never forgive me, but I couldn’t.’

‘You did the right thing,’ said Clarke, quiet and practical now the conversation had started. ‘They need all their strength to recover. It takes energy to think, and even more to be angry, and it’ll just take twice as long if they know what’s going on while they’re out of commission.’

‘We’re on our own,’ realized Lexa, somehow sinking even further into the seat. ‘I think I just assumed they’d fix everything once they found out. Like Indra would rise up out of bed like some avenging angel and hit Nia over the head with her sword of justice, or something. Like it would all just go away.’ She rubbed her hands over her face in mute horror. ‘Ye gods, I lied to Indra. She _is_ going to fire me. Or kill me. She legitimately might murder me in my sleep.’

‘I really hope that happens, just because I never thought I’d actually get an opportunity to say ‘you’ll have to kill me first’.’

‘Glad to be of service.’ The sardonic smile was back, just for a moment, before the ballerina sighed and sank again, and looked over at Clarke with the honest, exhausted expression the designer both loved and hated. ‘Take me home?’

‘Always.’

 

***

 

‘Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse,’ observed Octavia darkly, ‘you remember it’s _professional development_ season.’

A group of them had started arriving early for company class, to be there before the ballet-masters, and they’d checked the noticeboard that morning to find the neatly-typed list of names and time-slots that usually appeared around this time of year. Only this time they wouldn’t be meeting with Kane and Indra to discuss their annual goals, they’d be meeting with Nia. And that meant...

‘I just don’t know how I’m gonna spend twenty minutes alone with her without committing murder.’

‘Don’t look at her,’ yawned Murphy. ‘If you look at the spot between someone’s eyebrows they’ll think you’re making eye contact. I do that all the time.’

‘That explains so much about our relationship.’

‘We have a relationship?’

‘Exactly.’

Lexa finished rolling out the muscles in her hip and threw her tennis ball at him out of habit. He was her other regular partner, and they’d found they worked best when they pretended to hate each other. ‘I was going to suggest taking a shot before you go in.’

‘That’ll make me more likely to swear at her and get fired, not less.’

‘Two shots, then. Enough to relax you.’

‘Is this peer pressure?’

‘I’m pretty sure it was peer pressure that got you here in the first place.’

‘It’s just...what’s the fucking point?’ Octavia sighed as she put her theraband away. ‘I don’t want to hear what she has to say about my personal development. She’s already demonstrated she doesn’t give a single shit.’

‘It’s a hoop,’ said Lexa wearily. ‘Just jump through it. If we jump through it she might let us do tricks later.’

‘I have literally never been less excited about anything, and I have to do thirty shows of _Nutcracker.’_

Lincoln had been stretching off to the side with his earbuds in, since he was the sort of person who actually listened to meditation apps and whale music in the mornings, but it didn’t take him long to work out what they were talking about. ‘I doubt she wants to spend quality time with us any more than we do. Just think of literally two things you’re going to work on during season and she’ll write it in our files and we’ll be in and out in five minutes.’

‘What if I tell her that my goal is to finally earn the promotion I should have been given two weeks ago?’

‘We’ll put flowers on your grave.’

 

***

 

‘Hello, Lexa.’ Nia gestured pleasantly at the seat on the other side of the desk, gathering up her notes from the last meeting and tucking them into a folder. ‘You must be looking forward to sitting down, after the afternoon you’ve had.’

‘Always.’ That was true, at least, so they were off to a good start.

‘Let’s see then. Woods, Alexandra. Principal.’ The older woman flipped to the correct page in a new file and made a small note at the top. ‘Well, I usually begin by asking how each dancer hopes to progress during the season, but I suppose the only way for you is down.’

Lexa had decided that the best attitude to adopt around Nia was icy courtesy, but that was so breathtakingly obnoxious that she snapped. ‘What?’

‘You’re a prima ballerina. You can have any and all the repertoire you could possibly desire. The public love you, the critics have run out of new ways to praise you. The only thing you have ahead of you is... deterioration.’ Nia put down her pen and clasped her hands in front of her, gaze impossible to avoid. ‘This is not a criticism, Lexa. I’ve been there. I know how it is to be at the top and feel the ladder shaking underneath you. You know I do.’

‘If the ladder is shaking,’ said Lexa very distinctly, ‘it’s because someone is pushing it.’

She left that hanging in the air between them before she went on, because she was sick of tiptoeing around Nia’s death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach, and because she expected - and got - a certain vindictive enjoyment from the look on Nia’s face. ‘I’m twenty-seven. I’m not even in my prime yet. So to answer the question you never actually asked me, I fully expect to make progress by doing the new repertoire, and to help develop others as I do it. Aden, for instance.’

‘Yes, of course. I’m glad you mentioned Aden.’ Nia’s smile returned, almost regretful this time, and the ballerina had the uneasy feeling she’d just walked into a trap. ‘I think we’re going to have to take another look at that.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I saw your _Rhapsody_ rehearsal on Friday. He was clearly struggling.’ A small shrug. _What can I do._ ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think this is his year, so I’ve made the difficult decision to take him out.’

Lexa flexed her jaw instinctively. Clarke had seen her do it once, early in their relationship, and put a hand on her cheek to soothe her; _You haven’t noticed?_ _It’s what you do when normal people would lose their tempers._ ‘Of course he was struggling, it’s a hard piece. It was made on Baryshnikov, for Christ’s sake. Getting it right first time is way above his paygrade.’

‘I just don’t think he’s ready.’

‘It was his _fourth rehearsal.’_

‘And there were fundamental problems. Pushing a dancer too far too fast can be very damaging. Think of the blow to his confidence when he struggles with it on stage.’

 _‘If,’_ corrected Lexa, keeping her voice dead level. _‘If_ he struggles with it on stage. He won’t. And not pushing them enough can be just as bad.’ Nia didn’t respond to that; she must, surely she _must_ know it was true. ‘Aden could be a principal by twenty-five if he’s given the right opportunities, but he’s not going to develop at all if he’s standing at the back all the time.’

‘He’s playing one of the suitors in _Sleeping Beauty.’_

‘One lift, two supported pirouettes and a promenade. Excuse me while I faint in awe.’

‘I know what Indra would say.’

‘I don’t think you do.’

Nia raised her eyebrows, deliberately provoking. ‘There are no easy roles. Wasn’t that one of her favorite sayings? Each one has its challenges, and its lessons, if Aden has the humility to learn them.’

‘He could do it in his sleep.’

‘You and I both know that promenades are among the hardest things to get right.’

‘You cannot,’ said Lexa very quietly, ‘You _cannot_ take away all his casting except third-suitor-from-the-right just because you think he needs to work on his promenades. It’s irresponsible.’

‘Do you feel safe with him, Lexa?’ That had obviously touched a nerve, because Nia leaned forward, voice as cold and smooth as silk. ‘Can you honestly say that he’s ready? Do you trust him not to embarrass you on stage? Drop you? Injure you? Are you willing to put your career in the hands of a nineteen-year-old who has never done a leading role?’

Lexa was so angry that she leaned forward too, folding her arms on the desk to stop herself closing the entire distance between them, but she knew enough about anger to keep it contained. ‘Yes, I am. And I don’t care if he screws up every rehearsal from now until opening night, because he _learns,_ and he never screws up the same way twice. And _you -’_ she was this close to jabbing her finger in Nia’s face ‘- have to let him.’

‘No,’ said Nia softly, ‘I don’t.’

For one burning, furious millisecond, Lexa thought she might actually throw something. She felt her fingers tighten around her upper arm, and the rage uncurl dangerously somewhere in the pit of her stomach; but then the clarity rushed in the way it always did, and she used her words instead, cold and precise and equally intended to hurt. ‘You have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.’

‘This conversation is over.’ Nia scribbled two short notes on Lexa’s file and shoved it into the folder with enough force to betray her own anger. ‘I’ve found a wonderful guest artist to replace Aden. He’s looking forward to meeting you.’

Lexa was about to bite out a sarcastic refusal, _over my dead body, he can go fuck himself,_ but she was trapped and she knew it. There was nothing she could do, short of refusing to dance at all, and she remembered Octavia’s crestfallen expression the day after the committee meeting; _we can only strike if it’s for a reason that the public and the media will respect, and this isn’t one._ But the public and the media didn’t know them, didn’t know Aden, didn’t know why it was important, and they’d see Nia’s decision as erring on the side of caution instead of stripping everything away. And that left her with no choices.

She stood up with all the deadly grace she was famous for, as though it didn’t ache when she moved, and planted her hands on the desk so she was looking down on the older woman. ‘If I don’t like the way he touches me, I’m out. If he so much as looks at me the wrong way, I’m out. If I feel for a single moment like he’s here for you and not for me, _he’s_ out. No second chances.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Nia quietly. ‘I’m sure he’s  going to love you.’

 

***

 

Clarke had gotten to the point where she half-expected Lexa to be frustrated when she got in from the theater, even irritated, but she certainly wasn’t expecting the ballerina’s spitting fury when she came through the door that evening.

‘Don’t talk to me.’

‘Lexa, what the -’

‘I’m not mad at you, but if you talk to me I’ll say something terrible, and I won’t mean it, but I’m not sure I could stop myself. So just...don’t.’ Clarke stared, dumbfounded, as Lexa threw her coat on the kitchen island with so much force that it slid right off the other end. ‘Of all the _fucking_ things.’

‘You want something to eat?’

‘No, I want to get completely hammered and forget today ever happened, or pass out, whichever comes first. Jesus _fuck.’_ She leant on her elbows, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. ‘Gin. I need gin.’

‘You _need_ to take a minute before you combust.’

‘What a blessed relief that would be,’ snapped Lexa, cupboard doors slamming. ‘I did consider lying down in the road and praying for death, but then I realized that’s exactly what she wants. You need some?’

‘Why not. _Mixers,_ Lex.’

‘Knock yourself out. Cheers.’

Clarke considered being the responsible one, fixing some dinner to soften the fall of the alcohol and trying to persuade her girlfriend that drinking neat gin like water was only going to end one way; but then she remembered Nia’s paint-stripping smile and the almost threatening color of her false concern - _give my regards to Lexa, she looked tired in class_ \- and thought _fuck it, why not._ So instead she took her glass and found some soda at the back of a shelf, and ignored the dirty look she got when she slipped some into Lexa’s third straight shot, and they stood and drank steadily side-by-side until it set the warmth humming in their blood and took the sharp edges off their tempers.

Eventually Lexa put her glass down and sighed, pulling the pins out of her hair, sagging against the counter like the anger had been the only thing keeping her upright. ‘Either she likes setting stuff on fire for the fun of it or she literally has no idea what she’s doing, and I don’t know what’s worse.’

‘Here, you’ve lost some.’ Clarke snagged the stray pins and ran her fingers soothingly through the curls. ‘Well, you’re not alone. She hates me too now.’

‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’ said the ballerina sarcastically, but she tipped her head back into Clarke’s hands like a plea. ‘Don’t stop.’

‘What happened today, Lex?’

‘I nearly took Nia’s bloody fountain pen and shoved it up her ass.’

Clarke clinked their glasses solemnly. ‘Amen to that.’

‘I wish I had now. It would have meant I’d actually _done_ something.’ Lexa’s eyes always looked huge when she’d been drinking. Or perhaps when Clarke had been drinking. ‘She’s taken Aden out.’

For a vague, not-completely-sober moment Clarke thought that meant Nia had hired a hitman. ‘Out? Of what?’

 _‘Rhapsody._ The one he was doing with me. The hard one. She says he’s not ready. What a fucking load of unmitigated _bullshit.’_ More gin. ‘The only thing he’s doing now is _Sleeping Beauty._ Ten minutes of standing still and smiling while a princess leans on him and tries not to fall over. It’s cowardly, no, it’s _negligent,_ and it’s fucking suicidal if she ever wants the company to get anywhere or do anything.’

Clarke wrapped her arms around Lexa’s waist and rested a head on her shoulder. ‘I’m just gonna play devil’s advocate for a second, okay?’

‘I promise not to throw anything at you.’

‘Are you _sure_ he’s ready? I mean, there’s no chance that Nia actually has a point?’

‘But it’s not about being ready. _That’s_ the point. That’s what Nia doesn’t get, or doesn’t care about.’ Lexa turned round vehemently in the circle of Clarke’s arms. ‘We’re only two weeks in, if he was ready now he’d be...unique. A genius. _Rhapsody_ was choreographed on Mikhail Baryshnikov, he was the greatest dancer of the twentieth century at the height of his powers, and Aden’s nineteen. Brilliant for nineteen, but he’s a _child._ And he’s not going to turn into a fucking prince if no one kisses him.’

‘Cradle-snatcher.’

‘I mean it,’ insisted the ballerina, determined to be understood. ‘This is what it’s like to be a young dancer, a young _anything._ You have to be given opportunities. You have to be allowed to fail.’

‘I know,’ Clarke reassured, tracing her thumbs gently over Lexa’s cheekbones, rhythmic and calming. She was used to things being the other way around; she was usually the one who expressed her upset by storming and ranting and throwing her hands in the air, while Lexa asked the right questions and analyzed the answers, fixing her with kisses and perfectly-judged words. Part of her was glad to return the favor, even while she wished she didn’t have to.

Lexa quieted under her hands, face tired and set. ‘I can’t let her do this.’

 _‘We,_ Lex. _We_ can’t let her do this. It’s not all on you.’

‘Is that right? And what exactly are _we_ going to do?’

That was more like the ballerina's usual anger, sarcastic and brutally practical, but it came and went like lightning. Lexa rubbed her forehead and pushed Clarke away gently, hoisting herself up to sit on the countertop. ‘Christ. I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, I knew I’d say something terrible.’

‘Apology accepted. Now you can shut up and let me help you.’ Clarke rested her hands on Lexa’s thighs, the pressure just enough not to be ignored. ‘I don’t know how, yet, but you are _not_ solely responsible for saving Nia from herself. You’re not some maverick rogue agent with thirty seconds to save the world. You have people around you.’

Lexa snorted. ‘I’m not here to save Nia. She can go to hell.’ Her grip around the edge of the counter relaxed a little, some of the color returning to her knuckles. ‘But this is exactly what being a ballerina is really about. You’re not standing at the front for your own sake, you’re there to set an example, to bring everyone else up to your level. To take the lead.’ She leaned forward with a sigh until their foreheads were touching. ‘Sure, I’m not a rogue agent, but I do have to be a leader. That’s what I’m for.’

‘Then lead,’ said Clarke quietly. ‘But for that, you need the rest of us.’

 

***

 

‘Are you asleep?’

‘Mmm.’

Lexa was the quietest sleeper Clarke had ever encountered. Once she was down, tucked into whatever position made her muscles happiest on any given night, she was dead to the world, too exhausted to roll over unless some ache woke her up. Clarke wasn’t even sure what instinct had told her that she wasn’t the only one still awake.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘How much I hate gin. And myself. And the choices I make.’

‘That makes two of us.’

‘I think I’m still drunk.’

‘How would you know, it’s dark, and being curled up in a fetal position is pretty much your default setting.’

‘I just think I am. I feel it in myself.’

Clarke half-yawned, half-chuckled. ‘Come over here.’

‘I can’t move.’

‘Fine.’ Clarke shuffled closer, fitting an arm around the ballerina’s waist and nosing against her neck, and felt the usual drowsy elation as Lexa relaxed into her. ‘You’re cranky past your bedtime.’

‘Lately I feel like I’m always cranky,’ sighed Lexa, voice rough from the alcohol and the failed attempt at sleep. ‘I don’t like it. I don’t want you to hate being around me.’

‘I could never hate being around you, Lex.’

‘Just wait, it’s only been a couple of weeks.’

‘I’m patient. Because I love you, and also because you’re kind of hot when you’re angry.’

‘That’s probably true.’

‘Like your ego needed any additional stroking.’

‘Hardly. Nia absolutely refuses to stroke me.’ There was a pause, broken by a muffled groan as Lexa tried to bury her entire head in the pillow. ‘Excuse me, I have to dip my brain in bleach to get rid of that image. Now I _know_ I’m still drunk.’

Clarke giggled. ‘Shall I go fetch the gin?’

‘Burn it. Wait, no, don’t do that.’ Lexa rolled onto her back with a sigh, pushing her hair out of her face. ‘I have to keep going.’

It sounded so bleak and existential that Clarke reared up indignantly. ‘I should fucking hope so.’

‘No, you idiot. I mean with Aden.’ She sounded more resolute than she had done all evening, or all week. ‘He needs this. The _company_ needs him to have this. So if she wants to take it away from him, I’ll have to do it myself.’

Clarke slipped a hand under Lexa’s shirt and rested a hand on her hip, not entirely sure which of them she was trying to reassure. ‘Um. What does that mean, exactly?’

‘I’ll coach him. I’m pretty sure I know it well enough, and Lincoln will help, if I ask him. It’s not perfect, but I have to do something.’ She traced her fingertips along Clarke’s forearm and nodded, repeating the words as though to herself. ‘I have to do something.’

This was the breaking-point, Clarke realized; after weeks of sitting back and taking whatever small injustices Nia threw at her, Lexa could finally channel all of that suppressed anger into action. _I’d rather have a solid reason to hate her and an excuse to do something about it._ Maybe Nia was starting to show her hand, and maybe that meant they could start to turn things around.

‘The fightback begins, huh?’

Lexa hummed agreement as she pulled Clarke down for a kiss. ‘The fightback begins.’


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed the rating. You'll see why.

Roan White looked like he was probably shorter than Aden, but stronger, more like Lincoln in body type - a good match for her physically, Lexa had to concede, and he was certainly a brilliant dancer. 

‘Holy shit.’ Clarke stared at the screen over Lexa’s shoulder. ‘Is that even humanly possible?’

‘He’s not bad.’

‘Don’t be grumpy. Wait, play that one again. You’re sure it’s not, like, looped? Or sped up? Cause that is insane.’

Lexa reloaded the video and sat back, grudgingly impressed and wishing she wasn’t. ‘He’s a principal at Arcadian Theater Ballet. And he trained at Koroleva’s, which means that everything suddenly makes a lot more sense.’

‘Nepotism?’

‘Kind of. I mean, he has the talent to back it up. But there was no reason for Nia to bring someone in from outside if she didn’t want to show them off personally.’ Lexa had met Roan a handful of times; city cultural events, parties for donors, backstage at the odd gala. ‘Seems like a nice enough guy. He knows how good he is.’

Clarke smacked her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Sounds like someone else I know.’

_ ‘Clarke.’ _

_ ‘Lex.’ _

‘I can know my own value without being a narcissist.’

‘Oh, so Roan  _ is _ a narcissist?’

‘No,’ sighed Lexa, ‘probably not. I’m sure he’s fine. I just thought that if I ever danced with him it’d be on my own terms.’

‘That sounds exactly like what someone who knows how good they are would say.’

Lexa closed the laptop with a dramatic flourish and spun round on the couch to face Clarke. ‘Fine. I don’t hate the guy. He’s brilliant, and we’d probably look good together, and if you’d offered him to me for ten minutes in a gala with a choice of repertoire I’d have jumped at it. But I don’t want Nia thinking she can mess with my partnering without asking, and I don’t want him parachuted into Aden’s place for no reason.’

‘Sounds fair.’

‘I know. That’s the problem.’

Clarke lifted Lexa’s legs into her lap, kneading soothingly at the usual sore spot on her left calf. ‘It’s not defeatist to make the best of things. You can make sure Nia knows how pissed off you are and still do good work with Roan.’

‘Believe me, she knows.’

‘Well then.’

‘Yes, but…’ Lexa trailed off, realizing that she was in the kind of mood where she was determined to object to everything and she’d just run out of excuses. ‘You’re so wise.’

‘You’re cute when I’m right and you’re sulky.’

‘Lucky for everyone.’

 

***

 

Octavia strode into class the next morning like the slightest excuse would have her breathing fire.

‘Guess what she said in my meeting yesterday. No, really, guess.’

‘Well, obviously she didn’t fire you, or we wouldn’t have to keep putting up with your stupid face,’ drawled Murphy, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it. Lexa threw her tennis ball at him anyway, out of habit. ‘We can’t guess. Put us out of our misery.’

‘My technique  _ remains problematic,  _ which she can forgive due to my  _ unconventional training _ \- just because she thinks that everyone who didn’t go to Koroleva’s is garbage, and anyway, like I fucking asked - but her main concern is that I have to  _ mature as a dancer.  _ What the actual  _ fuck.’  _ Octavia began to foam-roll furiously. ‘“Mature.” Lexa had been a principal five years by the time she was my age.’

‘Only because Nia had nothing to do with it.’

The younger dancer looked at her severely. ‘You’re not helping. My attitude is fine, I take corrections, I know the stuff I still need to work on and I work fucking hard on it. I’ve done principal roles. I was good in them. What’s her problem?’

‘Psychopathy?’ suggested Harper gloomily. ‘Megalomania?’

‘All of the above. Fuck, I was this close to yelling at her. Actual, raised-voice yelling. She’s just impossible to reason with.’

‘Psychopaths are like that.’

‘She can  _ suck  _ my  _ dick,’  _ said Octavia with brutal finality. ‘I’m just gonna be a grown-up and ignore her. Ignore my boss, who runs my entire life and determines my entire future. How hard can it be?’

Lexa glanced over at Lincoln. He’d touched her shoulder briefly as he came in, without speaking, which wasn’t unusual - he often plugged straight into his meditation apps as he warmed up - but his face didn’t exactly look zen. She scooted over and twitched out an earbud when he nodded at her. ‘Everything okay?’

‘It’s my issue. Don’t worry about it.’

‘You know how this works. Your issue, my issue.’

They’d realized a long time ago that a good performance was as much mental as it was physical, maybe more so. If you were off your game for any reason, it was your partner’s problem as much as yours. Lexa had struggled with the communication aspect of partnering at first, reluctant to talk about feelings at the best of times, let alone when things were bothering her, but eventually she’d gritted her teeth out of necessity. Nearly fifteen years into their partnership, they barely needed words at all.

Lincoln grimaced and took out the other earbud. ‘Just, you know. The usual.’

‘Our glorious leader?’

‘Yep.’

‘Was it your meeting?’

Lincoln sighed, searching for the right words. ‘She’s  _ so  _ careful never to cross the line, you know? She managed to never actually say so, but she implied pretty heavily that I’ve been coasting on you for the last ten years. Which isn’t wrong, but -’

‘It is,’ snapped Lexa; harsher than she intended, which was becoming a theme. ‘It fucking is.’

‘Credit me with enough self awareness to know I wouldn't have gotten those early opportunities if I hadn't been your partner.’ Lincoln sounded angry too, but she knew it wasn’t with her. ‘No one was casting me in  _ Swan Lake  _ age twenty because they wanted  _ me,  _ it was because they wanted you and I was the one who made you look best. But I’m not just your fucking climbing frame, and she has to know that.’

‘You’ve earned every role you’ve been given,’ said Lexa flatly. ‘She’s not blind, she’s terrible. We just don’t know exactly why.’

‘Or what for,’ he added, sombre. ‘She still hasn’t told us what the game is. And she’s not letting us play.’

 

***

 

‘Just a hair slower,’ Anya told the rehearsal pianist. ‘And!’

The dancers moved on her upbeat. Clarke watched from her seat at the side of the room, mind whirring, hand moving on the sketchpad almost unthinking. Over the five years she’d collaborated on and off with Anya, she’d found that she worked best if she came to as many rehearsals as possible; nothing got her in the zone faster than having the dancers in front of her, seeing how they stretched and spun and sweated. And if it meant she could watch Lexa at work, with all her endless, effortless grace, that was just an added bonus.

It also meant that she was almost -  _ almost  _ \- too absorbed to be distracted by the presence of Nia, seated by the piano, unobtrusive were it not for what Clarke could only term her Aura. Her malevolent, corrosive, infuriating Aura. And Clarke had been in enough rehearsal rooms to know that it was affecting the mood.

‘Look up at your hand on the arabesque. Like it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.’ Anya nodded, curt, as Lexa tried again. ‘That’s it. You’re the queen of the fairies, you probably love yourself a little bit. So no acting required there.’

The two of them snarked at each other enough that Lexa barely processed it, rolling her eyes automatically as she examined the step in the mirror. The room was full of people, the first cast in the center following Anya’s instructions, the other casts and understudies trying out the odd step at the sides. Anya had been born to command rooms like these, Clarke knew that. The designer was also familiar with the icy composure Anya usually maintained in the presence of irritants like Nia. So there was something truly weird about how on edge the choreographer seemed. The signs were subtle, but they were there. 

‘Linc, can you make the cabrioles less flappy? They should be more, like...hummingbird. Better. Dun da ya da di da da da da...fairies need to be downstage by now.’

The four corps girls who were playing Lexa’s attendants scurried forwards on pointe, feet moving so quickly Clarke could barely process how each step led into the next. She still couldn’t quite work out how she wanted the fairies to look, so she paid close attention to the fluid, quicksilver way Anya was having them move, and didn’t notice the choreographer’s frown until the music stopped. 

‘Yeah, it’s that moment again. Still isn’t working. Try it without the piano.’ The girls obeyed. Clarke wondered if she would ever get past the stage of thinking that every move the dancers made was flawless. ‘No.’ They did it again. Anya chewed her lip and spoke almost to herself. ‘No. That’s not it. I can’t work out why it doesn’t look right.’

‘It needs more tension,’ said Nia unexpectedly. ‘The shape comes from the arms, and without real tension, it sags. You need to commit to balancing each other. Use your weight more.’

‘Nia’s right.’ Saying it looked like it caused Anya actual physical pain. ‘That’s where the problem’s coming from. Just have a go like that...yeah, Beth and Aiko have got it. That’s much more what I want.’

Lexa hung back to kiss Clarke after the rehearsal was over, gleaming with sweat even as she tugged her legwarmers and hoodie back on. ‘Get what you needed?’ 

‘Some. Getting there. You know.’ Lexa had listened to plenty of Clarke’s late-night rants when she had an idea she couldn’t pin down, or needed one last concept to round out a collection. ‘Hey, is Anya okay? She doesn’t seem -’

‘Hard of hearing?’ Anya manifested out of thin air behind Lexa’s shoulder, having evidently finished her chat with the pianist. ‘Nope, still here, still in possession of all five senses, still freakishly attuned to people thinking I’m anything other than the pinnacle of human achievement. Got a break, Lex? Let’s sit down.’

Nia had left almost immediately the rehearsal ended, expression unsettlingly neutral, but the three of them still checked both ways cautiously as they opened the studio doors. Nia hadn’t come into the break room again since that first day, but it was clear that no one completely trusted her not to do it again. Anya filled two cups with the objectionable break room coffee and presented Lexa with hot water and a tea bag before taking a seat facing the door. ‘So. What did you think?’

‘Me?’ Clarke took a sip of the coffee and felt her taste buds retreat in protest. ‘Anya, Octavia literally fell over during a solo last season and I thought it was part of the choreography. I think we’ve established my analysis is worthless.’

‘Hmm.’ The choreographer looked torn between her mood, which was evidently negative, and the fact that Octavia’s mishap had been very funny. She didn’t speak again immediately, and Lexa shook her head minutely when Clarke opened her mouth, but eventually Anya obviously made up her mind and drained her coffee. ‘Something’s not clicking. I don’t know what it is I can’t work out. Steps for days, but they never seem to lead anywhere, and I keep going round in fucking circles and coming back to the same few ideas. And now Nia fucking Koroleva knows about it, and not only that, she fucking  _ fixed  _ my work.  _ Improved  _ it. I want to murder her even more.’

Lexa shrugged, resigned rather than dismissive. ‘She’s a perfectly good coach. She understands the mechanics. She just doesn’t believe in us or what we’re doing.’

‘I don’t know what her endgame is. Does she want to kill the ballet or give it CPR?’ Anya leaned forward, fixing Lexa with the eye contact that made junior dancers wilt. ‘Swear on Balanchine’s grave. Was I coming up with shit out there?’

‘No.’

_ ‘Seriously,  _ Lex. I need to know.’

‘No,’ said Lexa evenly, ‘you weren’t. It’s all good stuff. It’s all usable. I just think you’re panicking because you don’t have the whole ballet mapped out in your head like you usually do, and you’re having to piece it together blind.’

‘Congratulations, you managed to make it sound even more terrifying than it already was.’

‘I try.’ Lexa’s tone was ironic, but her eyes were soft. ‘Look, we’ve got so much time. It’ll get easier and easier as we do more of it. And you don’t need me to tell you this, but you’re brilliant, and Indra and Kane wouldn’t have commissioned you if they didn’t know you could do it.’

Anya nodded, bluntly, almost awkward, and ran her hands over her face. ‘Fuck’s sake. I need to get in gear.’

‘You’ll get there. Do you know how I know?’

‘Astound me.’

‘Because you’d rather die than let Nia get the better of you.’

 

***

 

There were times when Lexa looked in the mirror and was startled to see herself staring back. She spent almost every waking hour in front of mirrors, but she’d always been good at stripping the personal out of her scrutiny. There was an important difference between the dispassionate self-assessment of the studio, analysing the precise angle of her head or the interplay between her limbs and Lincoln’s, and catching herself barely dressed in the wardrobe door. She was familiar with the many small violences her career had done to her body - fingerprint bruises on her waist from a partnering mishap, the bigger one on her hip from an awkward fall, a friction burn on her instep from floor work - but it was still a shock to remember that they belonged to  _ her.  _

‘We’ll never make it to the party if you’re gonna stand around looking like that.’

Tanned arms draped around her hips, and a chin tucked into the crook of her shoulder, and breath skated across the bare skin of her chest in the way that always made her shiver. ‘Is that a promise?’

‘You like these events once you’re there. Well. You don’t hate them.’

‘I like  _ you,  _ and I’d rather take my chances on the whole standing around naked thing.’

‘You’re impossible.’ Clarke kissed Lexa’s neck and withdrew her hands firmly. ‘Come on, I’ll dress you. Give you the full fashion week experience.’

‘I’ve been to fashion week and I’m fairly sure I don’t want that.’

‘The after-parties are pretty great though.’

Lexa caught the suggestive lift of Clarke's eyebrows just before the designer moved out of range of the reflection, and saw herself smile in response. But she saw the bruises as well, and for the first time she could remember, she wondered if they were worth it. 

 

***

 

‘I wish you fashion people could just call a spade a spade,’ sighed Lexa in the car. ‘You get all dressed up and make like this is just a party and we’re all supposed to have fun, but really it’s fancy overtime. We all know the bar is going to be deserted because half the attendees are networking furiously and the other half know the exact calorie content of each different type of wine.’

‘We literally met because of a donors’ gala that  _ your  _ people put on,’ Clarke pointed out. ‘And anyway, it’s not like dancers call spades spades either. You probably call them  _ battements du terre,  _ or  _ cuillères du jardin.’ _

‘I love it when you talk European to me.’

‘Have I mentioned I studied abroad?’

‘It may have come up once or twice.’ Lexa grinned at her, the familiar smile that lit her up from the inside, before she looked down again and plucked restlessly at her skirt. Clarke had picked their outfits out from her most recent collection the way she always did. Lexa had an extravagant brocade skirt and separate top, cap-sleeved, demure except for the gap between hem and waistband wide enough to reveal exactly the right amount of toned stomach. Clarke’s gown was strapless and printed with soft-focus petals, high-octane femininity offset by a geometric metal necklace. Whenever they went to one of these events, they were walking advertisements, and every detail was precisely calibrated.

Lexa was exactly right. It was fancy overtime. 

There were champagne flutes on trays when they arrived, held aloft by waiters with the cheekbones and sulky expressions of models, and a conspicuously untouched buffet table beside the equally untouched bar. Lexa breathed ‘told you’ into Clarke’s ear before the hostess scooped them up. Air kisses were exchanged, key guests discreetly pointed out, and the hard work began. 

One thing the fashion world had in common with the ballet world was the sense of hierarchy. It was more unspoken than the uncompromising  _ corps - soloist - principal  _ ladder in a ballet company, but it still existed, communicated by who dressed who at which event and whose clothes got the nod from editors. Clarke knew her place - middle-to-top, enough supermodels on her catwalks to get attention, still young enough to be considered vaguely upstart and edgy - but having a ballerina on her arm always got her extra cachet. Lexa was talented and witty and smart, but most importantly for the people in that room, she was very, very decorative.

There was an art to working a room like this. It was partly keeping an eye on new arrivals to notice when an industry heavyweight entered the room, partly knowing the perfect time to approach them so as not to appear either desperate or disparaging, partly being able to exit a conversation at short notice without leaving the other party feeling shortchanged. Clarke and Lexa had it down to an art form. Usually it was Clarke who spotted the new opportunity and Lexa who found a way to gracefully make their excuses, but this time Lexa was the one who placed a hand in the small of Clarke’s back and got her attention. ‘I’ve just seen Diana come in. Indra and Kane would kill me if we didn’t go say hello.’

Twenty years earlier, Diana Sydney had played a television role with sufficient pop culture heft that she still had five million Instagram followers, invitations to enough red carpet events to need Clarke’s personal phone number, and, via the mysterious process by which arts organizations appointed their directors, a seat on the board of City Ballet. Clarke was completely indifferent to her as a person, but she was a Personality, and Personalities had to be cultivated. 

They were too close to change course when the woman beside Diana turned around, and Lexa froze for a split-second mid step. 

‘My two favorites,’ Diana greeted them, as enthusiastic as a professional communicator doing her job. ‘I always think how neat it is that you bring my great loves together. Fashion and the ballet. How are you both?’

‘Enjoying the event,’ answered Clarke for both of them, keeping it as impersonal as possible. ‘It’s wonderful to have a chance to catch up.’

‘I know, I know. So rare to get all of these busy people in one room. Speaking of which…’ Diana gestured towards her companion. ‘Lexa knows Nia, obviously, but I don’t know if you and Clarke have met…?’

‘Oh, Clarke is hard at work on the new ballet for next season,’ Nia replied in a tone which on anyone else would have been light-hearted, even jovial. Paired with her eyes, it was vaguely sinister. ‘The new Hunter. Indra and Marcus’s last commission.’

‘Oh, of course. I can’t believe I forgot. You have so many projects, Clarke, I can barely keep track.’ Diana led them all in a little round of social laughter. Lexa did not smile. ‘Nia, it’s such a relief for everyone that you’ve come on board at the company. Obviously it was a terrible shock to be deprived of Indra and Marcus so suddenly, but you’re such a natural fit. And I do think it’s wonderful to finally have the company led by a female director. So important.’

‘Indra will be surprised to hear that,’ said Lexa smoothly. ‘You know, I think she was completely unaware of not being a female director after all. Still, being male does make evening dress so much easier. No offense, Clarke.’

‘None taken.’

Diana blinked, not offended so much as completely unfamiliar with being contradicted. ‘First solo female director, of course. We all know the world needs more powerful women, and here’s Nia, at the head of one of the world’s greatest companies. What a message that will send to young dancers in the future.’

‘We all need role models,’ agreed Nia, equally smooth. ‘Indra was always someone I saw myself...emulating.’

_ Replacing. _

Clarke wasn’t the only one who thought it. Lexa excused herself, barely bothering to make her reasons convincing, and headed straight for the bar. Clarke forced herself to spend another ten minutes listening to Diana’s inane commentaries on fundraising and future programs, inwardly re-ordering the list of things she hated about her job, before she found an opening to disappear into the crowd.

Lexa was standing by the buffet table, stress-eating her way through an entire platter of radishes which some underpaid chef had carved into flower shapes. 

‘This whole fucking thing,’ she said as Clarke got close enough to hear, low and furious. ‘I swear to god, Clarke…’

‘I know.’

‘It’s  _ bullshit.’ _

‘It is,’ said Clarke quietly, hand tucking into the crook of Lexa’s elbow, ‘and we’re going to leave right now before you start throwing those at Nia.’

‘This is your event, and if I let her spoil things for you as well as for me it makes it all infinitely fucking worse.’

‘It’s not  _ my  _ event. I’ve made the right appearances and talked to the people I need to talk to.’ She shifted the pressure of her hand, just subtly, in the direction of the exit. ‘I don’t need to be here. And I know you don’t want to be.’

 

***

 

Lexa was silent in the cab, chin resting on one hand and the other tapping restlessly against her knee until Clarke laid her own on top of it. Clarke wouldn’t have been entirely surprised to see actual physical smouldering, heat shimmering around the ballerina’s profile, sparks as she recrossed her legs.

It exploded again as they got into the apartment. Lexa half-dropped, half-threw her keys in the bowl with a force that sent it teetering, and kicked her heels off viciously. Clarke watched them skid into a corner and leaned against the back of the couch, thoroughly pissed off herself, but experienced enough to know that her girlfriend needed to prowl a little before she could be tamed.

‘How is she suddenly everywhere?’ said Lexa out of the blue, after she’d stormed around the kitchen for a while and emptied her clutch in search of painkillers. ‘We’re in the same industry. We live in the same city. I hadn’t seen her for nine years and now she runs my company and hell, that means she pretty much runs my life, and now she shows up when I’m off the clock too. I don’t get it.’

‘There’s nothing to get. It’s just shitty luck, all round, and it has to turn sometime.’

‘Ha.’ Lexa rolled her eyes hard as she chased the pills down with a shot glass full of - mercifully - water. ‘I thought so too, but it’s starting to feel like I can’t get away from her and now I’m not so sure.  _ Fuck.’ _

‘Lex, I know this is easy to say and hard to do, but you have to try and forget about it.’

‘Yeah?’ The glass hit the counter with a sharp click. ‘Make me.’

Plea disguised as provocation. 

Clarke looked at her girlfriend on the other side of the kitchen island. At this distance Lexa’s eyes looked very dark, more so with her makeup, and her expression was half burning with her fury and half cold with how powerless she felt about it. She was fathoms deep in her own head, and Clarke held out a hand to pull her back. ‘Come over here.’

Lexa didn’t move for a second, hesitant, almost wary of her own movements. Clarke waited as she crossed the floor, struggling with each step not to break away and storm and seethe like before, and ran her hands along her girlfriend’s upper arms. ‘I love you.’

A sigh, a deflation, hands settling on her hips. ‘I love you too.’

‘I love you, Lex, and nothing outside of this -’ she tightened her grip on Lexa’s shoulders ‘- is gonna change that. I don’t care if you’re a ballerina or a teacher or a librarian or a fucking chef. I don’t care if I have to visit you in jail after you murder Nia live on stage. None of that shit we’re going through is gonna last, but this will.  _ We  _ will. Okay?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Say it to me.’

Lexa swallowed, muscles still wound tight. ‘It’ll be fine. We’re more than this.’

‘That’s right.’ Clarke gave her a quick, chaste kiss and patted the back of the couch. ‘Come on, sit down.’

Lexa nodded, tired and trusting, gaze flickering backwards once to check that Clarke was following. She sat down on the couch and leant back, expecting Clarke to climb into her lap, but she swallowed hard again as Clarke knelt between her legs instead. Clarke saw the bob of her throat and the flex of her jaw, the way the tension still thrummed through her shoulders, and reached up to still her. ‘Let me do this for you, okay?’

It wasn’t heavy to begin with. Soothing, gentling kisses, anchoring them in the here and now. Clarke felt a little bit of the tension dissipate with each press of her lips and every sweep of her hand through Lexa’s hair, reading it in the growing heat of Lexa’s kisses, no longer just matching hers but chasing. Ready for more.

Clarke pushed Lexa’s skirts aside and Lexa hummed against her, turning into a purr as Clarke’s fingertips skimmed her inner thigh. ‘Tease.’

‘Are you complaining?’

‘No - god -’

Lexa’s hips jerked as Clarke hooked her underwear aside and trailed a finger along her slit. Just one to start, slipping inside gentle and unhurried, enjoying the tight hot cling of Lexa around her. The dancer was slick but not drenched, spending the evening too angry to have her mind anywhere near arousal, and Clarke worked her up tenderly. She refused to rush even at the soft choked sound Lexa made when she curled her finger, knowing the slow easy movement would get Lexa wet without being nearly enough. She kept the kisses deep and purposeful and loving, even as Lexa tried to cant her hips up to find some pressure.

‘Be patient,’ she murmured against Lexa’s cheek, the other hand rubbing rhythmic at the back of Lexa’s knee. ‘We have time.’

She kept going until Lexa was slumped on the couch, usual dancer's posture long gone out the window, lower body angled as close to Clarke as possible. There were too many clothes in the way for anything more satisfying. Clarke could already hear Lexa’s breath hitching with each slow thrust, and feel the restless tremble in her arms where she’d draped them over Clarke’s shoulders. She’d been built up long enough.

Clarke tugged gently on Lexa’s panties to help her slide out of them and gave her a last hard kiss, leaving a smear of wetness along her jawline. ‘Touch yourself.’

Lexa made a needy noise at the back of her throat, disappointment as Clarke moved away, but she took over willingly enough. Clarke urged her forward gently and settled behind her. It meant she could reach to undo the fastenings down her back, feeling Lexa shiver as Clarke slipped her hands under parted fabric to drink in the warmth of her skin. But it also meant she could watch the flex of Lexa’s wrist, the steady pump of her slim fingers, the way they glistened up to the knuckle as she withdrew to smooth them through her folds. 

Clarke rested one hand on Lexa’s thigh, heavy and possessive, and felt herself throb at the way Lexa instinctively spread her legs wider in response. Her other hand slid up Lexa’s neck to cradle the base of her skull, scritching gently through the curls, until Lexa tipped her head back and exhaled, ragged. ‘Clarke…’

‘Show me.’

Lexa spread herself with two fingers, dipping inside to reveal the slick stringing from her. Clarke gulped and squeezed her thigh firmly. ‘Come on.’

The skirt all but fell away as Lexa stood up, Clarke giving it a tug where it caught on a hip, and the top followed it to the floor. The kisses were different now, all teeth and tongue. Clarke bit down on Lexa’s lower lip as she steered them down the hall, just enough to make Lexa sag almost imperceptibly in her arms, and smiled against her at the reaction. It took a lot to make Lexa let go when she was in this mood, but at least she wanted to be made.

‘Unfair,’ breathed Lexa, backed up naked against the bedroom door and shivering as Clarke’s clothes brushed her skin. ‘I’d have expected at least some of these to fall off by now.’

‘Far too well-made for that.’

‘They’re in the way.’

‘Just let me be selfish for a second,’ Clarke coaxed, spinning them with a kiss and steering the dancer over to the bed. ‘You spend all day surrounded by gods, you probably genuinely don’t know how beautiful you are. Just look at you. I know every inch of you and I love all of it, and sometimes I just want to take a moment to be greedy and think about how lucky I am that you let me. And I love you in my clothes, but -’

‘Don’t say it.’

‘I love you out of them even more.’

‘Every time.’ Lexa’s voice was a good octave lower than usual. ‘Every damn time.’

‘Then you won’t want me to take this off?’

‘If you don’t I’ll do it myself.’

‘Next time I might let you.’

It wasn’t, it genuinely wasn’t that Clarke picked out clothes based on how forgiving they were of being dropped on the floor in a hurry. But it helped. She managed to undo the zip as gracefully as could be expected and stepped out of the fall of fabric, unsnapping her bra and tossing it aside as she climbed onto the bed, Lexa reaching for her with eyes wide and wanting. Clarke bent to kiss her, slotting a thigh just gently between Lexa’s legs and feeling them spread for her. She always relished the heavy possessive weight of leaning down, pressing their torsos together, feeling Lexa melt and her body give against Clarke’s.

Lexa moaned, low and soft. Her hands found their way into Clarke’s hair and her hips rolled, demanding, trying to grind down and never quite finding the pressure. Clarke laughed and withdrew her thigh entirely. Instead she swung her leg over, soaked center meeting the hard muscle of Lexa’s stomach, and heard Lexa’s protest collapse into a gasp.

‘Good?’

‘Good,’ breathed Lexa, all but writhing under her. ‘Clarke, please…’

Clarke kept her waiting just a little longer, holding her down by the shoulders and sliding slow and dirty on her abs, until Lexa’s eyes were huge and dark and Clarke was sure there wasn’t a thought in her head except how badly she wanted to be touched. Another moan rumbled down through her chest and Clarke laid a hand flat above her breasts to feel it. ‘More? Well, I guess you’ve been pretty patient.’

Lexa made a valiant attempt at rolling her eyes but it got lost in a pleading noise as Clarke kissed her neck, sloppy and wet and just enough teeth. One hand stroking along Lexa’s bicep and the other cupping her breast, thumbing at her nipple, working her way down until Lexa was trembling beneath her. She pressed Lexa into the mattress and lavished attention on all the little corners she loved, feeling the warmth of her ribs and the hard press of hipbones. Clarke gazed up the length of Lexa’s body once more before she settled between her legs, and felt a spike of arousal so powerful her breath stuttered - Lexa was flushed all the way down her chest, the tendons in her neck standing out as she strained to hold herself still, thighs slick and spread for Clarke.

Clarke loved everything about going down on Lexa. She always loved that very first long swipe of her tongue along the length of Lexa’s slit, the literally mouthwatering promise of it and the way it made Lexa’s head fall back as the rest of her body arched. She loved the way she knew exactly which stroke of her tongue would have Lexa trying desperately to spread her legs even wider, and which pressure and angle would earn hips grinding against her. She loved being able to take Lexa apart with just her tongue, settling in, working deeper until kitten licks turned into heavy presses and soft wet noises.

She loved that by the time she was done, Lexa wouldn’t be thinking at all. 

Lexa was certainly long past being able to stay still by the time Clarke sucked gently at her clit, twisting beneath her even as Clarke held her hips down. She was  _ strong,  _ easily able to break Clarke’s hold if she wanted to, and the fact that she was still there squirming into the mattress meant that she wanted to be. None of the begging, none of the wordless pleas for more could completely override the fact that she wanted it never to end. Clarke loved her like this, when she was almost crying with the frustration and the need. Beyond thinking, and exactly where Clarke wanted her. 

‘Please,’ Lexa managed eventually, clutching at the single syllable like a lifeline. ‘Oh please, please, please -’

Clarke lifted her mouth off Lexa for the second it took to reply, earning a breathless whine that was half-desperation, half-relief. ‘Not yet.’

‘Clarke, I can’t -’

‘You can.’

_ ‘Please -’ _

Lexa arched off the bed and keened at the ceiling as Clarke went back to work. Clarke knew all the signs - that way Lexa’s hips stopped circling and began to grind down, hyper-focused, when she found an angle she liked - and backed her away from the orgasm with a smile she thought Lexa could probably feel against her. She’d only planned on doing it once, but that was before she heard the pleading gasp punched straight from Lexa’s chest when she fell away from the edge. Clarke did it again, just to see if the same thing would happen, and again when that drew an even more wrecked sound from Lexa, hoarse and barely making it through her throat. The fourth time Lexa didn’t even cry out, just begged wordless and appealing and twisted her hands in Clarke’s hair in a desperate attempt to get her where she needed her. Until Clarke stopped entirely. That got a reaction somewhere near a wail.

There was something to be said for having Lexa so visibly spread open for her, dripping and swollen and hips twitching against nothing, but Clarke wanted to feel more skin. ‘Come here.’

She pulled Lexa into her lap, moaning together at the drenched glide of Lexa’s center over Clarke’s thigh as she settled in place. Lexa cupped Clarke’s face to kiss her, open-mouthed, needy, only to lose her breath entirely when Clarke slid two fingers through her folds. Her forehead dropped to meet Clarke’s as Clarke slipped inside smooth and easy, finding Lexa hot and silky and so, so wet. 

‘I love you,’ Clarke whispered, all hard firm thrust, ‘I love you so much, and I love it when you come for me.’ 

Lexa was panting harshly, hands skimming restless around Clarke’s face and shoulders, and Clarke wasn’t even sure if she heard. Not that it mattered. Clarke curled her fingers, stroking at Lexa’s front wall steady and relentless, and knew she was getting it exactly right when she felt the hot spill of fluid down her hand. She set up a rhythmic twisting motion to pump it back into her, Lexa’s body clinging to her fingers. Her wrist was on fire and soon she’d have no choice but to stop but surely, surely -

Lexa came hard and messy around her fingers, almost sobbing with the release and relief of it all. Her head was thrown so far back that she couldn’t hold herself upright even with the convulsive press of her fingers on Clarke’s shoulders, and Clarke reached her other arm around to anchor her, hand tangling with the fall of sweat-streaked hair down Lexa’s back. Lexa clung to her as she rode it out. Clarke fucked her through it gently until she flinched away, oversensitive, almost dazed as she opened her eyes to meet Clarke’s. 

‘Hold on to me,’ murmured Clarke, warm and aching even untouched. ‘I’ve got you.’

It could have been one minute or five before Lexa exhaled long and shaky and eased herself away, collapsing on the bed. Clarke just stared for a moment, cherishing the dancer with her eyes as much as she had with her hands, until Lexa reached for her. ‘Clarke -’

‘Don’t move a muscle.’ 

She ground out her own orgasm fast and filthy on Lexa’s thigh, whispering loving nonsense into her ear and barely finding a rhythm before she was coming hard enough to make her dizzy. Her back arched almost painfully as she locked up for a long, bright-clear moment, but Lexa was boneless and trusting and so, so beautiful under her. It was usually Lexa who really  _ felt  _ during sex - ‘Silent art form,’ she’d teased once, ‘the emotions can’t escape’ - but there was something about it all that almost made Clarke want to cry.

‘You’re my best thing,’ whispered Lexa, worn out but content, hand to Clarke’s cheek. ‘My best thing.’

Lexa’s limbs were soft and pliant for the first time in days. Weeks. 

That was enough of a victory for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Say hi on tumblr @southsouthwest


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